They went into the drawing-room. Lilias was seated in a low chair by the window, looking at the magnificent view. Lilias was at a piece of fancy-work which she sometimes affected; Lady Ada was at the piano, scarcely playing, but touching a note here and there, too softly to be a nuisance. Norman looked at each of them, then round the room, with a feeling of indefinable disquietude. Something seemed to be in the air.

Esmeralda was gazing over the wide-stretching lawn far away into the distance, where the clouds were tinged with a copper hue from the glow of the setting sun. The gayety she had displayed during dinner had left her when she went into the drawing-room with the other women. Ada had tried to talk to her; but Esmeralda, though she had spoken without evincing any animosity, had, so to speak, kept her at arm’s-length, and Ada had gone to the piano to wait for Trafford’s entrance. Lilias had taken up her work, because she thought Esmeralda was tired and would like to be quiet. The duke went to his accustomed chair. Lord Selvaine took up a “Quarterly Review,” which he had not the least intention of reading. Trafford went and sat beside Lilias and asked after[206] the people and things at Belfayre. Norman wandered about the room, in an aimless, restless kind of fashion for a minute or two, glancing wistfully now and again at the quiet figure by the window; then, as if he were drawn toward her, he went up to her.

She started slightly at his approach and looked up at him. She had been thinking of the dark cloud over her life; of the husband who was divided from her; of Lady Ada, the woman he loved; and the sight of Norman, with his bronzed and handsome face and lithe figure, recalled Three Star Camp to her, the wild woods, the keen mountain air, and all that past in which she had been so free from care and so ignorantly happy.

A smile stole over her face; it was like a smile of welcome, and he smiled in response.

Not for a moment did he forget that she was Traff’s wife. He tried to efface the memory of his love, the night by the silver stream below the camp; but she would always be Esmeralda to him, the girl he had loved, the woman for whom he would at any moment gladly lay down his life.

“You didn’t stay long,” he said.

“No,” she said; “we all wanted to come in here.”

“Did you really?” said Esmeralda. “I often wonder why you should want to come into the drawing-room. It must seem so dull to you, and you are always so merry after we leave you. We can hear you laughing. I suppose you are telling funny stories?”

“We didn’t to-night,” said Norman. “The conversation was rather limited to one subject.”

“I wonder what that was?” she said, with a smile.

“Well, it was about you,” he said. “It isn’t fair to tell tales out of school, but I suppose a bride expects to be talked about; and the duke was very great. Selvaine says that you have bewitched him.”

Esmeralda sighed slightly.

“I am very fond of him,” she said.

“And he returns the compliment tenfold,” remarked Norman. “You are to have your portrait painted by Millais—but perhaps I ought to have left Trafford to tell you that.”

“Why?” she asked.

Norman looked rather surprised.

“Oh, because he’d like to. It is a husband’s privilege to bring all good news to his wife.”

“Oh, yes, yes,” she assented, gravely.

Something in her tone struck him, as the expression in her[207] eyes had done. What was it? He glanced toward Trafford and then at her.

“This room seems hot,” he said.

“It is hot,” she assented, drawing a quick breath.

“Let us come outside,” he said; “I’ll get you a shawl or something.”

“No, no,” she said; “it will be quite warm out there. I hate being smothered up.”

He noticed the novel impatience in her manner. They went on to the terrace and along the winding path through the lawn. They were silent for a little while. Norman was troubled by something that he thought he ought to say, and wondering whether, after all, he had better not leave it unsaid. At last he said, speaking in a low and embarrassed manner:

“I haven’t seen you since the wedding. I—I wanted to tell you how sorry I’ve been that I rushed myself upon you that morning.”

Esmeralda looked at him, and then straight before her, but said nothing.

“I could have knocked my head off, and Trafford’s too,” he blundered on. “Of course it was a shock to you, seeing me all in a moment and without a word of warning.”

“I was startled,” said Esmeralda in a low voice.

“Of course you were,” he said, eagerly; “and—and so was I. I’d only come back to England the night before, and I didn’t know that you had changed your name—I mean, that you were Miss Chetwynde, the millionairess.”

“Don’t call me that,” said Esmeralda.

Norman wondered why she objected; but said, hastily:

“I beg your pardon. Since I left Three Star Camp, of course, I hadn’t heard of you. How should I?”

“How should you?” she repeated, absently.

“And I wanted to tell you, Esmeralda—I may call you Esmeralda, may I not?”

“Oh, yes,” said Esmeralda; “you may call me what you like. We are cousins, or something of that sort, are we not?”

“Thank you—yes. I wanted to say—I wanted to ask you to forgive me for—for what happened that night. It was presumptuous of me, and—and you were right to be angry and offended,” he added, humbly and penitently.

A faint color had risen to Esmeralda’s eyes.

“I was not angry—offended,” she said in a low voice.

“Weren’t you?” he said, gratefully. “I thought you were—you left me without a word.”

“I— But what does it matter?” she broke off, with a[208] kind of weary impatience. “It is all so long ago, it is as if it had never happened. Why do you talk of it, and bring back the past?”

She spoke almost fiercely, and Norman was filled with remorse.

“You’re quite right,” he said. “I’m an idiot to go back to it. I beg your pardon. As you say, what does it matter? You are married now, and to the best fellow in the world. There’s no one like Trafford—no one—and you are sure to be happy.”

“Yes,” she said, quietly, “I am sure to be happy.” Then she laughed. “Is any one in the wide world quite happy? I doubt it. Are you?”

Norman started.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “But why did you say that? You spoke as if—oh! it’s stupid of me, of course,” he laughed apologetically—“as if you weren’t quite happy.”

“That would be so very ridiculous and impossible, wouldn’t it?” she said, with a mirthless smile.

“Well, I think it would,” he said, candidly. “With Trafford for a husband and everybody loving you”—he colored and stammered as a man does when he speaks of love.

“And being a countess and having plenty of money,” continued Esmeralda, with a hard laugh, “I could not be anything but happy, could I? Why, all the women envy me, as Lady Wyndover says, and what more could I want?”

He looked at her with a troubled frown on his face.

“I don’t know whether you are chaffing me or not; I suppose you are,” he said.

“What does it matter?” she said, with the same weary impatience.

“It matters a great deal to me,” he retorted, his face flushing then growing pale. “I’ve tried to forget—forget Three Star, and I mean to: don’t be angry, but hear me out,” for she had made as if to interrupt him. “But—but though you wouldn’t listen to me—and you were quite right—and as you are Traff’s wife, I should like you to let me be your friend. Oh, Lord! that sounds tame and feeble! Look here, Esmeralda, what I mean is that I should like to be your special friend, some one you could come to if you were in trouble, some one to fetch and carry for you—you know what I mean. I’d go to the end of the world for you, not only because you’re Traff’s wife, but—but because”—he turned his head away. Esmeralda fancied that there might be tears in his eyes—“because of—of that night by the stream at Three Star.”

[209]

She looked straight before her. She felt that, had she not been Traff’s wife, he would have loved her still, and the thought fell upon her love-thirsty heart with a strange and dangerous sense of comfort.

&ldq............