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Updated: June 5, 2025
Three times David had gone to the Cloistered House; once Hylda and he had met in the road leading to the old mill, and once at Soolsby's hut. Twice, also, in the garden of his old home he had seen her, when she came to visit Faith, who had captured her heart at once. Eglington and Faith had not met, however.
She did not understand why Hylda's hands trembled so, why so strange a look came into her face, but, in an instant, the rare and appealing eyes shone again with a light of agitated joy, and suddenly Hylda leaned over and kissed her cheek. "Smell the coffee," she said with assumed gaiety. "Doesn't fair-and- sixty want her breakfast? Sunrise is a splendid tonic." She laughed feverishly.
He was either busy in his laboratory, or with his books, or riding over the common and through the woods, and their courses lay apart. But there came an afternoon when Hylda and David were a long hour together at the Cloistered House. They talked freely of his work in Egypt. At last she said: "And Nahoum Pasha?" "He has kept faith." "He is in high place again?" "He is a good administrator."
They had struck a deeper note than love or friendship. They had touched the chord of a secret and mutual experience which had gone so far that their lives would be influenced by it for ever after. Each understood this in a different way. Hylda looked towards the letter lying on the table. It had raised in her mind, not a doubt, but an undefined, undefinable anxiety.
In the haste and confusion ensuing on her death, the maid had not seen it. It had never reached his hands, but lay in a pocket of the dead woman's writing-portfolio, which Hylda had explored without discovering. Only a few hours, however, before the Duchess of Snowdon came, Hylda had found again an empty envelope on which was written the name, James Fetherdon.
David laughed slightly, also, and Hylda noticed that it had a certain resemblance in its quick naturalness to that of her husband. "I am not sure that we are so busy there as we ought to be," David answered. "I have no real standards. I am but an amateur, and have known nothing of public life. But you should come and see." "It has been in my mind. An ounce of eyesight is worth a ton of print.
It has always seemed to me the place where some native evil and cruelty in your blood worked out its will. . . ." With a deep-drawn sigh Hylda said to herself: "If I were dying to-morrow, would I say that? She loved them so at first must have loved them so; and yet this at the last! And I oh, no, no, no!"
I have no belief in 'antic Fate." Hylda realised, with a new and poignant understanding, the difference of outlook on life between the two men. She suddenly remembered the words of Confucius, which she had set down in her little book of daily life: "By nature we approximate, it is only experience that drives us apart."
As she did not answer the last words of the Duchess, the latter said presently: "When do you expect Eglington?" "Not till the week-end; it is a busy week with him," Hylda answered; then added hastily, though she had not thought of it till this moment: "I shall probably go up to town with you to-morrow."
Action, however startling, will be proof of fitness. His Highness shakes a long spear. Those who ride with him must do battle with the same valour. Excellency, I have now great riches since Death smote Foorgat Bey in the forehead" still his eyes conveyed no meaning, though Hylda shrank back "and I would use them for the good thou wouldst do here.
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