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She stopped and turned, checked by a sound behind her. Captain Roughsedge appeared, carrying his gun, his spaniel beside him. He greeted the ladies with what seemed to Mrs. Colwood a very evident start of pleasure, and turned to walk with them. "You have been shooting?" said Diana. He admitted it. "That's what you enjoy?" He flushed. "More than anything in the world."
And from the second, the tenant of the room had access to a small terrace, public, indeed, to the rest of the hotel, but as there were no other guests the English party took possession. Bobbie stood beside the terrace window with Diana, gossiping, while Chide and Ferrier paced the terrace with their cigars. Neither Miss Vincent nor Frobisher had yet appeared, and Muriel Colwood was making tea.
Poor thing she must have known a great deal of trouble an only child, and no mother! "Well, I'm sure if there's anything we can do " Mrs. Roughsedge nodded cheerfully towards her husband and son in front. The gesture awakened a certain natural reserve in Mrs. Colwood, followed by a quick feeling of amusement with herself that she should so soon have developed the instinct of the watch-dog.
The little companion was already sufficiently attached to Miss Mallory to hope that in this case a natural tact and balance might not be thrown away. As to suitors and falling in love, the natural accompaniments of such a charming youth, Mrs. Colwood came across no traces of anything of the sort.
Meanwhile, in Beechcote village, that night, a man slept lightly, thinking of Diana. Hugh Roughsedge, bronzed and full of honors, a man developed and matured, with the future in his hands, had returned that afternoon to his old home. "How is she?" Mrs. Colwood shook her head sadly. "Not well and not happy." The questioner was Hugh Roughsedge.
It never had been true. "Hullo! who comes?" Mrs. Colwood was running over the lawn, bringing apparently a letter, and a newspaper. She came up, a little breathless. "This letter has just come for you, Mr. Ferrier, by special messenger. And Miss Mallory asked me to bring you the newspaper." Ferrier took the letter, which was bulky and addressed in the Premier's handwriting.
He left his bag at the village inn, tried to ignore the scarcely concealed astonishment with which the well-known master or reputed master of Tallyn was received within its extremely modest walls, and walked up to the manor-house. There he had a short conversation with Mrs. Colwood, who did not propose to tell Diana of his arrival till the morning.
She perceived in a moment that Mrs. Colwood was the new "companion" to the heiress, that she was a widow, and sad in spite of her cheerfulness. "Now I hope Miss Mallory is going to like us!" she said, with a touch of confidential good-humor, as she drew Mrs. Colwood a little behind the others. "We are all in love with her already. But she must be patient with us. We're very humdrum folk!" Mrs.
She was bending over the fire, with her back to the door, and a reading-lamp beside her. To her amazement, Diana heard a sob, a sound of stifled grief, which struck a sudden chill through her own excitement. She paused a moment, and repeated her friend's name. Mrs. Colwood started. She hastily rose, turning her face from Diana. "Is that you? I thought you were still out."
She yielded weakly; pacifying her social conscience by the half-penitent remark that Mrs. Colwood would have said good-bye to her guests, and that she she supposed they would soon have to know. "Well, as I want you to marry me in six weeks," said Marsham, joyously, "I suppose they will." "Six weeks!" She gasped. "Oh, how unreasonable!" "Dearest! A fortnight would do for frocks.
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