it were otherwise,
then she thought that when the moment came she would still have
strength enough to hide her sorrow. If he had come simply for the
hunting,--simply that they two might ride a-hunting together so that
he might show to her that all traces of his disappointment were
gone,--then she would know how to teach him to think that her heart
towards him was as it had ever been. The thing to be done would be so
sad as to call from her tears almost of blood in her solitude; but
it should be so done that no one should know that any sorrow such as
this had touched her bosom. Not even to Lucy should this secret be
told.

There was a clock on the mantelpiece to which her eye was continually
turned. It now wanted twenty minutes to eight, and she was aware that
if the train was punctual he might now be at the hall-door. At this
moment Lady Albury entered the room. "Your knight has come at last,"
she said; "I hear his wheels on the gravel."

"He is no knight of mine," said Ayala, with that peculiar frown of
hers.

"Whose ever knight he is, there he is. Knight or not, I must go and
welcome him." Then Lady Albury hurried out of the room and Ayala
was again alone. The door had been left partly open, so that she
could hear the sound of voices and steps across the inner hall or
billiard-room. There were the servants waiting upon him, and Sir
Harry bidding him to go up and dress at once so as not to keep
the whole house waiting, and Lady Albury declaring that there was
yet ample time as the dinner certainly would not be on the table
for half-an-hour. She heard it all, and heard him to whom all her
thoughts were now given laughing as he declared that he had never
been so cold in his life, and that he certainly would not dress
himself till he had warmed his fingers. She was far away from the
door, not having stirred from the spot on which she was standing
when Lady Albury left her; but she fancied that she heard the murmur
of some slight whisper, and she told herself that Lady Albury was
telling him where to seek her. Then she heard the sound of the man's
step across the billiard-room, she heard his hand upon the door, and
there he was in her presence!

When she thought of it all afterwards, as she did so many scores of
times, she never could tell how it had occurred. When she accused him
in her playfulness, telling him that he had taken for granted that
of which he had had no sign, she never knew whether there had been
aug