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Updated: June 12, 2025
Tonight death had stopped him. "Was he consulting you professionally, Mr. Harley?" asked the physician. "He was," replied Harley, continuing to stare fascinatedly at the photograph on the mantelpiece. "I am informed," said he, abruptly, "that Miss Abingdon is out of town?" Doctor McMurdoch nodded in his slow, gloomy fashion. "She is staying in Devonshire with poor Abingdon's sister," he answered.
She accepted a glass of Miss Abingdon's very special claret and never even touched it; and later, in one of the pauses of her elaborate trifling at luncheon, she told a funny story which made every one laugh, and caused even Canon Wrottesley to attempt to conceal the fact that he saw the point of the story. The worst of it was that Toffy encouraged her in everything she said and did.
"Miss Abingdon," replied Harley, "when the worst trials of this affair are over, I want to have a long talk with you. Until then, won't you believe that I am acting for the best?" But Phil Abingdon's glance was unrelenting. "In your opinion it may be so, but you won't do me the honour of consulting mine." Harley had half anticipated this attitude, but had hoped that she would not adopt it.
If only she were at Miss Abingdon's now, instead of in her uncle's house in Grosvenor Place! 'She 'll miss the hunting, I 'm afraid, he thought miserably, contrasting their present separation with all the joy and happiness that they had so fully intended should be theirs this winter. Mr.
Wrottesley was one directed to her husband in dear Miss Abingdon's handwriting. The canon opened it unheedingly. Miss Abingdon often sent him little notes, but never, perhaps, had she written one which spoke more genuinely out of a full heart than did this. She had written in the middle of the night, although she felt how disorderly and almost indecorous such a proceeding was.
And Harley found himself wondering whether her eyes were really violet-coloured or whether intense emotion heroically repressed had temporarily lent them that appearance. Surprise was the predominant quality of his first impression. Sir Charles Abingdon's daughter was so exceedingly vital petite and slender, yet instinct with force. The seeming repose of the photograph was misleading.
And now he was at Hulworth with Mrs. Avory, and Mr. Lawrence was touring the country in his big red motor-car telling everybody about it. Mrs. Wrottesley heard the story from her maid, who had it from Miss Abingdon's butler, and she told it to her mistress when they were counting charity blankets together in Mrs. Wrottesley's bedroom. The canon was away from home, and Mrs.
'You 've had to dry Miss Abingdon's tears, and listen to Canon Wrottesley reading aloud, and you have had to be hearty to carol-singers and to waft holly-berries in the faces of mothers. Why don't you throw something at me when I come to your room in the middle of the night as cross as a bear with a sore head, and begin to grumble at you? This remark Jane considered serious.
'Come and sit beside me, love, said her husband, indicating one of Miss Abingdon's garden-seats in close proximity to his own cushioned chair, 'and I will take care of you. Miss Abingdon smiled and looked admiringly at him. Conscience frequently protested against her giving way to the thought, but in her heart Miss Abingdon was convinced that Mrs. Wrottesley was not quite worthy of her husband.
He expressed to the landlord of that hostelry a civil surprise and gratification at the volume of Abingdon's business, evinced by a steadily swelling current of early morning wagons, laden with produce, on their way to the station, or, by the river road, to the factory towns near by; was assured that he should come in the potato-hauling season if he thought that was busy; parried a few polite questions; and asked the way to the Selden Farm.
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