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"When " "Ah, I was wrong there. I was merely thinking of " "Wrong!" says Rylton slowly. His thoughts have gone back to that last interview with Margaret, and what she had said about his folly in asking Marian on a visit to Oakdean, considering all that had been said and done between them in the old time. "You remember it, then?" asks Marian. She looks at him.
The coachman has drawn up! They stop! The groom springs down someone from the lodge rushes quickly out. The gates are flung wide. The horses dash down the avenue! Presently they draw up at the hall door the door of Oakdean! Rylton, getting out, takes her in his arms, and places her on the first step of the stones that lead to the hall.
Gone past recall! When Tita's affairs were wound up, it was found that all should be sold, not only her other two houses, but the old home the one beloved of her childhood. Oakdean came to the hammer a month ago! Indeed, out of all her large fortune only a bare £300 a year was saved for the poor little heiress of yesterday!
Of Maurice she would hardly talk at all, but of Oakdean she would talk by the hour. The wheels of law grind slowly, and it was not until last month that the actual sale of her beautiful home took place. The news came to her when she and Margaret were at Berne on their homeward way, and she had quite broken down.
He refused to acknowledge to himself that he was sacrificing his niece. It was not a sacrifice; it was an honour! For one thing the old man stipulated, or rather bargained. He had managed his niece's affairs so far with great success; some of her money was in land, in Oakdean and Rickfort, for example; the rest he had invested securely, as he hoped and believed.
"Why, that is about your age now, isn't it?" says Gower. "We lived at Oakdean then," goes on Tita, taking, very properly, no notice of him, "and my father liked me to ride. My cousin was with us there, and he taught me.
"There is someone else you ought to love better, Tita." "There is someone else I hate," returns Tita, with really astonishing promptitude. "Well, about Oakdean," says Margaret quickly, appalled by this outbreak of wrath. "There is nothing about it; it is gone," says Tita, in a forlorn sort of way; then: "I wonder who bought it?" "I don't know. I asked, but I could not find out.
"Welcome home, my lady," says he, touching his cap to Tita, who gives him a little nod in return, whilst feeling that her heart is breaking. "Home!" She feels as if she hates poor Evans, and yet of course he had meant nothing. No doubt he thought she was coming back to Oakdean. Dear, dear Oakdean, now lost to her for ever!
Chichester disgustedly. She is sitting near the window in the small drawing-room at Oakdean, watching the raindrops race each other down the panes. "What's the matter with it?" asks Mr. Gower, who is standing beside her, much to the annoyance of Captain Marryatt, who is anxious to engage her for some waltzes at the dance old Lady Warbeck is giving in the near future.
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