e was certainly very late
for the twelve o'clock breakfast. Richard Calmady--awaiting her coming
beneath the glistering dome of the airy pavilion, set in the angle of
the terminal wall of the high-lying garden--had time to become
conscious of slight irritation. It was not merely that he was
constitutionally impatient of delay, but that his nerves were
tiresomely on edge just now. Trifles had power to endanger his somewhat
stoic equanimity. But when at length Helen emerged from the house
irritation was forgotten. Moving through the vivid lights and shadows
of the ilex and cypress grove, her appearance had a charm of unwonted
simplicity. At first sight her graceful person had the effect of being
clothed in a religious habit. Richard's youthful delight in seeing a
woman walk beautifully remained to him. It received satisfaction now.
Helen advanced without haste, a certain grandeur in her demeanour, a
certain gloom, even as one who takes serious counsel of himself,
indifferent to external things, at once actor in, and spectator of,
some drama playing itself out in the theatre of his own soul. And this
effect of dignity, of self-recollection, was curiously heightened by
her dress--of a very soft and fine, woolen material, of spotless white,
the lines of it at once flowing and statuesque. While as head-gear, in
place of some startling construction of contemporary, Parisian
millinery, she wore, after the modest Italian fashion, a black lace
mantilla over her bright hair.

Arrived, she greeted Richard curtly, and without apology for delay
accepted the contents of the first dish offered to her by the waiting
men-servants, ate as though determinedly and putting a force upon
herself, and--that which was unusual with her before sundown--drank
wine. And, watching her, involuntarily Richard's thought traveled back
to a certain luncheon party at Brockhurst, graced by the presence of
genial, puzzle-headed Lord Fallowfeild and members of his numerous
family, when Helen had swept in, even as now, had been self-absorbed,
even as now. Of the drive to Newlands, all in the sad November
afternoon, following on that luncheon, he also thought, of
communications made by Helen during that drive, and of the long course
of event and action directly or indirectly consequent on those
communications. He thought of the fog, too, enveloping and almost
choking him, when in the early morning driven by furies, still virgin
in body as in heart, he had ridd