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Updated: June 25, 2025
The man was accustomed to the French of Englishmen, and withdrew without moving a muscle of his face. But Lady Hartledon's ears had been set on edge. "Don't attempt French again, Val. They'll understand you if you speak in English." "Did I make any mistake?" he asked good-humouredly. "I could speak French once; but am out of practice. It's the genders bother one."
"He was near to the spot at the time; I saw him there," continued Lord Hartledon, speaking apparently to himself; whilst the flush, painfully red and dark, was increasing rather than diminishing. "I know you did," returned Pike. The tone grated on Lord Hartledon's ear.
Two county friends of Hartledon's, jolly fox-hunters in the season, had come riding a long way across country, and looked in to beg some refreshment. The dowager fumed, and was not decently civil; but she did not see her way to turning them out. They talked and laughed and ate; and dinner was indefinitely prolonged.
Ashton noticed it. As he shook hands with her, she held the note before him. "See, Percival! I was writing to ask you to call upon me." Anne had put out the light, and her hand was in Lord Hartledon's before she well knew anything, save that her heart was beating tumultuously. Mrs. Ashton made a place for him on the sofa, and Anne quietly left the room.
"Be quiet, Maude," cried the countess-dowager, who, with all her own mistakes, had the sense to see that this sort of disparagement would only recoil upon them with interest, and who did not like the expression of Lord Hartledon's face. "You talk as if you had seen this Mrs. Ashton, Hartledon, since your return." "I should not be many hours at Hartledon without seeing Mrs. Ashton," he answered.
These reflections might have lasted all the way home but for an interruption that drove every thought out of Lord Hartledon's mind, and sent the heart's blood coursing swiftly through his veins. Turning a corner of the dark winding path, he came suddenly upon a lady seated on a bench, so close to the narrow path that he almost touched her in passing.
"I know they can't bring it home to me; I know they can't!" he exclaimed, in tones so painfully eager as to prove to Lady Hartledon's ears that he thought they could, whatever the matter might be. "I'll go with you, Carr; this uncertainty is killing me." "There's little uncertainty about it, I fear," was the grave reply. "You had better look the worst in the face."
He pointed to the temple as he spoke. Lord Hartledon's usually good-natured brow at present a brow of deep sorrow contracted with displeasure. "It is an awful accident," he replied. "But I asked what you were doing here?" "I thought I'd like to look upon him, sir; and the butler let me in. I wish I'd been a bit nearer the place at the time: I'd have saved him, or got drowned myself.
Very much to Lord Hartledon's surprise perhaps somewhat to his annoyance the man answering to this name was the one who had originally come to Calne on a special mission to himself. Some feeling caused him to turn from the man whilst he gave his evidence, a thing easily done in the crowded room.
He would have preferred, I suppose, that you should marry your country sweetheart, Anne Ashton." A hot flush rose to Lord Hartledon's brow, but his tone was strangely temperate. "I have already warned you, Maude, that we shall do well to discard that name from our discussions, and if possible from our thoughts; it may prove better for both of us."
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