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Laying of ghosts is a public duty, and, as the mystery of the apparition that had frightened little Clare was never solved on the stage of events at Raynham, where dread walked the Abbey, let us go behind the scenes a moment.
The wise youth yawned, and stretched out a hand for any book that might be within his reach. Austin left him to look about the grounds for Richard. A little laurel-shaded temple of white marble looked out on the river from a knoll bordering the Raynham beechwoods, and was dubbed by Adrian Daphne's Bower.
Certain sweet little notes from Lucy sustained the lover during the first two weeks of exile. They ceased; and now Richard fell into such despondency that his father in alarm had to take measures to hasten their return to Raynham.
"You hit mortal hard when you're in earnest, you know." Richard averred he would forgive anything but that, and told Tom to be within hail to-morrow night he knew where. By the hour of the appointment it was out of the lover's mind. Lady Blandish dined that evening at Raynham, by Adrian's pointed invitation. According to custom, Richard started up and off, with few excuses.
Within this room there was a still smaller chamber little more, indeed, than a spacious closet in which slept the faithful old servant, Solomon Grundy. Both the doors were open, and Black Milsom heard the heavy breathing of the old man the breathing of a sound sleeper. Beyond the short passage was the door opening into the sitting-room used by the young heiress of Raynham.
By a measurement of dates he discovered that the bridegroom had brought his bride to the house on the day he had quitted Raynham, and this was enough to satisfy Adrian's mind that there had been concoction and chicanery. Chance, probably, had brought him to the old woman: chance certainly had not brought him to the young one.
"Do not question me, Reginald," he said. "You are afflicted with a lack of moral courage, and your want of nerve would only enfeeble my hand. Know nothing expect nothing. Those who are at work for you know how to do their work quietly. Oh, by the way, I want you to sign a little document very much the style of thing you gave me at Raynham Castle."
With the onward flow of intimacy, the two happy lovers ceased to be so shy of common themes, and their speech did not reject all as dross that was not pure gold of emotion. Lucy was very inquisitive about everything and everybody at Raynham. Whoever had been about Richard since his birth, she must know the history of, and he for a kiss will do her bidding.
Would he judge her again as he had judged her before? She was conscious of a fresh impulse of anger against Lady Raynham. She wanted to forget the past blot it all out of her memory and out of the memory of the man whose contempt had hurt her more than anything in her whole life before. And now it seemed as though everything were combining to emphasise those very things which had earned his scorn.
Within a fortnight after the night on which Black Milsom had been invited to supper in the servants'-hall, Captain Copplestone quitted Raynham Castle for an indefinite period, for the first time since Lady Eversleigh's departure.
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