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The winter had closed over Stagholme, the isolating, distance-making winter of English country life, wherein each house is thrown upon its own resource, and the peaceful are at rest because their neighbours cannot get at them. Dora was out. She was out a good deal now; exceedingly busy in good works of a different type from those affected by Sister Cecilia.
Arthur asked me to marry him. I quite appreciated the honour, but I declined it." "Yes, but why? Surely you didn't mean it?" "I did mean it." "Well," explained Mrs. Agar, with a little toss of the head, "I am sure I cannot see what more you want. There are many girls who would be glad to be mistress of Stagholme."
Glynde would urge Dora to marry Arthur Agar and Stagholme, without due regard to her own feelings in the matter, is a question upon which no man can give a reliable opinion. Certain it is that such a course was precisely what the Reverend Thomas had marked out for himself. He had an exaggerated respect for money and position a title was a thing to be revered.
He too seemed to share the belief of all who came in contact with him that General Michael could not do wrong in warfare. That night the Master of Stagholme laid him down to rest in the shadow of a big rock, strong in himself, strong in his faith.
The event was duly announced in the leading newspapers, and in the course of a few days a copy of the Times containing the insertion started eastward to meet Seymour Michael on his way home from India. Anna Agar came home to Stagholme to begin her new life; for which peaceful groove of existence she was by the way totally unfitted; for she had breathed the fatal air of Clapham since her birth.
It is a strange thing that in the spring-time those who are happy pro tempore, of course, we know all that are happier, while those who carry something with them find the burden heavier. Stagholme in the spring came as a sort of shock to Dora. There were certain adjuncts to the growth of things which gave her actual pain.
She was seated on a sofa at the far end of the room when Seymour Michael was shown in, and the first thing that struck her was his diminutiveness. After the hearty country gentlemen who habitually carried mud into the Stagholme drawing-room, this small-limbed dapper soldier of fortune looked almost puny. But there is a depth in every woman's heart which is only to be reached by one man.
"Here," continued the mistress of Stagholme, going to the writing-table, "is his diary; perhaps you would care to look through it? Poor Jem! I am afraid it will not be very interesting." Dora took the little dark-coloured book almost indifferently. "Thanks," she said. "It was always an effort to him to write the very shortest letter, was it not?
Sister Cecilia was staying from Saturday till Monday, which alone was sufficient reason for this young soldier to pass his last evening in Stagholme under another than his own historic roof.
The winter had not come on well, but in fits and starts, with trying winds and much rain. She said these things while she cut into her roll of red flannel the scissors seemed to give her courage. The Rector of Stagholme had awful visions of a furnished house at Brighton or a crammed hotel on the Riviera.
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