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Could it be possible that Lady Mason had forged the will, that this deed had been done by his mother's friend, by the woman who had so nearly become Lady Orme of The Cleeve? The idea was terrible to him as he rode home, but yet he could not rid himself of it. And if this were so, was it also possible that his grandfather suspected it? Had that marriage been stopped by any such suspicion as this?
Knowing the full circumstances of his situation as she knew them now as she had never before known them ought she to make herself the legal wife of Swithin St. Cleeve, and so secure her own honour at any price to him? such was the formidable question which Lady Constantine propounded to her startled understanding.
I wouldn't advise you to stay much round Cleeve after sundown, for there's a big camp of gypsies about there, an' they're a rough lot, pertikly a man they calls Tom o' the Gleam." Helmsley smiled. "I know Tom o' the Gleam," he said. "He's a friend of mine." Meg Ross opened her round, bright brown eyes. "Is he?
'It is not much of a palace to offer you, he remarked, smiling. 'But at any rate, it is a refuge. The cheerful firelight dispersed in some measure Lady Constantine's anxieties. 'If we only had something to eat! she said. 'Dear me, cried St. Cleeve, blankly. 'That's a thing I never thought of. 'Nor I, till now, she replied. He reflected with misgiving.
Cleeve, either to-day or on any other day. Her divinations were continually misleading her, she knew: but a hitch at the moment of marriage surely had a meaning in it. 'Ah, the marriage is not to be! she said to herself. 'This is a fatality. It was twenty minutes past, and no parson had arrived. Swithin took her hand. 'If it cannot be to-day, it can be to-morrow, he whispered.
Cleeve, called again as usual; after duly remarking on the state of the weather, congratulating him on his sure though slow improvement, and answering his inquiries about the comet, he said, 'You have heard, I suppose, of what has happened to Lady Constantine? 'No! Nothing serious?
She could content herself no longer with fruitless visits to the column, and when the rain had a little abated she walked to the nearest hamlet, and in a conversation with the first old woman she met contrived to lead up to the subject of Swithin St. Cleeve by talking about his grandmother. 'Ah, poor old heart; 'tis a bad time for her, my lady! exclaimed the dame. 'What?
Lady Staveley had known it, but up to that moment she had hoped that that knowledge might have remained hidden as though it were unknown. When Peregrine got back to The Cleeve he learned that there was a lady with his mother. He had by this time partially succeeded in reasoning himself out of his despondency.
Among those who took her by the hand in the time of her great trouble was Sir Peregrine Orme of The Cleeve, for such was the name which had belonged time out of mind to his old mansion and park. Sir Peregrine was a gentleman now over seventy years of age, whose family consisted of the widow of his only son, and the only son of that widow, who was of course the heir to his estate and title.
"And perhaps it will be as well," added the baronet, "that he and Perry should not be together at school, though I have no objection to their meeting in the holidays. Mr. Crabfield's vacations are always timed to suit the Harrow holidays." The Perry here mentioned was the grandson of Sir Peregrine the young Peregrine who in coming days was to be the future lord of The Cleeve.
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