he said. Beauchamp said nothing.

The room grew insufferable to Cecilia. She would have liked to be wafted
to her chamber in a veil, so shamefully unveiled did she seem to be. But
the French lady would have been happy in her place! Her father kissed her
as fathers do when they hand the bride into the travelling-carriage. His
'Good-night, my darling!' was in the voice of a soldier on duty. For a
concluding sign that her dim apprehensions pointed correctly, Mr. Romfrey
kissed her on the forehead. She could not understand how it had come to
pass that she found herself suddenly on this incline, precipitated
whither she would fain be going, only less hurriedly, less openly, and
with her secret merely peeping, like a dove in the breast.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE RIDE IN THE WRONG DIRECTION

That pure opaque of the line of downs ran luminously edged against the
pearly morning sky, with its dark landward face crepusculine yet clear in
every combe, every dotting copse and furze-bush, every wavy fall, and the
ripple, crease, and rill-like descent of the turf. Beauty of darkness was
there, as well as beauty of light above.

Beauchamp and Cecilia rode forth before the sun was over the line, while
the West and North-west sides of the rolling downs were stamped with such
firmness of dusky feature as you see on the indentations of a shield of
tarnished silver. The mounting of the sun behind threw an obscurer gloom,
and gradually a black mask overcame them, until the rays shot among their
folds and windings, and shadows rich as the black pansy, steady as on a
dialplate rounded with the hour.

Mr. Everard Romfrey embraced this view from Steynham windows, and loved
it. The lengths of gigantic 'greyhound backs' coursing along the South
were his vision of delight; no image of repose for him, but of the life
in swiftness. He had known them when the great bird of the downs was not
a mere tradition, and though he owned conscientiously to never having
beheld the bird, a certain mystery of holiness hung about the region
where the bird had been in his time. There, too, with a timely word he
had gained a wealthy and good wife. He had now sent Nevil to do the same.

This astute gentleman had caught at the idea of a ride of the young
couple to the downs with his customary alacrity of perception as being
the very best arrangement for hurrying them to the point. At Steynham
Nevil was sure to be howling all day over his tumbled joss Shrapnel. Onc