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What could she say to him? "Well?" he said, after a moment. "The end of the story is it written yet?" She shook her head dumbly. Curiously, the throbbing anger had left her heart at the mere sound of his voice. He waited for about three seconds, then knelt quietly down beside her. "Say," he drawled, "I kind of like Raffold Abbey, sweetheart. Wouldn't it be nice to spend our honeymoon there?
She looked at her stepmother no longer, but began very quietly and steadily to make the tea. Lady Raffold waited a few seconds for her confidence, but she waited in vain. Lady Priscilla had retired completely behind her shield, and it was quite obvious that she had no intention of exposing herself any further to stray shots.
She saw him shake hands with Lady Raffold, and bow to the Ambassador. Then came her stepmother's quick, beckoning glance, and she moved forward in response to it. She was quivering from head to foot, bewildered, in some subtle fashion afraid. "My dear, your cousin. He will take you in. Ralph, this is Priscilla." It was sublimely informal. Lady Raffold had rehearsed that introduction several times.
I was coming over, so I undertook to explain. I spoke to Lady Raffold in town over the telephone, and told her. She seemed to be rather affronted, for some reason. Possibly it was my fault. I'm not much of a diplomatist, anyway." He seated himself on a mossy stone below her with this reflection, and began to cast pebbles into the brown water. Priscilla watched him gravely.
For in her dream she was standing on the threshold of her paradise, waiting for the opening of the gates. Raffold Abbey was huge and rambling, girt with many memories. They spent nearly two hours wandering through the house and the old, crumbling chapel. "There is a crypt below," Priscilla said, "but we can't go down without a lantern. Another day, if you cared "
"We will have the end of the story presently," he said; and deliberately turned to his left-hand neighbour. A musical soirée was to follow that interminable dinner, and for a time Priscilla was occupied in helping Lady Raffold to receive the after-dinner guests. She longed to escape before the contingent from the dining-room arrived upstairs, but she soon realised the impossibility of this.
She laughed a little nervously. He was not without audacity, notwithstanding his quiet manner. "You can cross if you like," she said. "But it's all private property." He paused, looking at her intently. "It belongs to Earl Raffold, I have been told?" She bent her head, and her answer leapt out with an ease that astonished her. She felt it to be an inspiration. "It does.
It was a Saturday afternoon, warm and slumbrous, and Saturday was the day on which Raffold Abbey was open to the public when the family were away. Priscilla's presence was, as it were, unofficial, but though she was quite content to have it so, she was determined to escape from sight and hearing of the hot and dusty crowd that thronged the place on a fine day from three o'clock till six.
It was a voice she knew. As through a mist, she looked across the great room, with its many lights, its buzz of careless voices. And suddenly, it seemed to her, she was back in the little village church at Raffold, furtively watching a stranger who stood in the entrance, and searched with level scrutiny quite deliberately and frankly till he found her.
She was quite sure that she would be bored, whatever happened, though she was too kind-hearted to say so. "I wonder why Priscilla has put on that severely plain attire? It makes her look almost ugly," sighed Lady Raffold. "And how dreadfully pale she is to-night! Really, I have never seen her look more unattractive."
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