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Have you met anyone?" "No," she replied; then she smiled, as she added: "Only a poacher." The old man raised his head, a faint flush came on his face and his eyes flashed with haughty resentment. "A poacher! What are the keepers about! Ah, I forgot; there are no keepers now; any vagrant is free to trespass and poach on Herondale!"
As he happened to stand with his back to the window the gravity of his face did not enlighten her; and with something like a start she received his first words. "Miss Heron, my mother says that you have some thought of leaving Herondale, of going abroad.
I met him in London and got permission from him. Do you know to whom this water belongs?" "To Mr. Heron, of Herondale," she replied. "I beg Mr. Heron's pardon," said Stafford. "Of course I'll put up my rod at once; and I will take the first opportunity of apologising for my crime; for poaching is a crime, isn't it?" "Yes," she assented, laconically.
"No; it is part of the Herondale estate," replied Ida, rather more gently: for was it not horrible that she should be engaged in altercation with Stafford's future wife? "Then I presume I have the honour of speaking to Miss Heron," said Maude, with an indefinable air, combining contempt and defiance, which brought the colour to Ida's face again. "My name is Ida Heron; yes," she said.
Without undressing, she threw herself on the bed and tried to sleep; but her heart ached too acutely and her brain was too active to permit of sleep; and, try as she would, her mind would travel back to those brief days of happiness at Herondale, and she was haunted by the remembrance of Stafford and the love which she had lost; and at times that past was almost effaced by the vision of Stafford seated beside Maude Falconer at the concert.
"Then, if you are making no mistake, it is I who am trespassing," said Maude, "and it is I who must apologise. Pray consider that I do so most fully, Miss Heron." "No apology is necessary," said Ida, still more gently. "You are quite welcome to ride over this or any part of Herondale." Maude gave a little scornful laugh.
It's very little I have to offer you, a share in the hard life of a farmer out there in the wilds; but if you were still the mistress of Herondale, instead of poor " Half unconsciously she broke in upon his prayer. "I am still what I was. I am not poor. My father was a rich man when he died."
It was almost difficult to believe that she had ever left Herondale that Laburnum Villa was anything but a nightmare and the Herons a dismal unreality.
Heron of Herondale, the great heiress." Howard pricked up his ears, but maintained his languid and half-indifferent manner. "Miss Heron of Herondale," he said in his slow voice. "Don't think I've met her." "No? Dessay not. She doesn't go out much, and Lady Clansford thinks it's rather a feather in her cap getting her here to-night. When you see her you won't say I've over-praised her.
Until she had sat in the carriage, and the train had started and she realised that she was indeed going home home! she did not know what it had cost her to leave Herondale, how much she had suffered at Laburnum Villa, how deep the iron of dependence had entered her soul.
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