"Why, a year is apt to change a man," I answered. "Adversity is
a hard school, but, sometimes, a very good one."
"Were he changed, no matter how--were be a beggar upon the roads,
I should love him--always!" said she, speaking in that soft,
caressing voice which only the best of women possess.
"Yes, I had guessed as much," said I, and found myself sighing.
"A year is a long, long time, and we were to have been married
this month, but my father quarrelled with him and forbade him the
house, so poor Perry went back to London. Then we heard he was
ruined, and I almost died with grief--you see, his very poverty
only made me love him the more. Yesterday--that man--"
"Sir Harry Mortimer?" said I.
"Yes (he was a friend of whom I had often heard Perry speak); and
he told me that my Perry lay at Tonbridge, dying, and begging to
see me before the end. He offered to escort me to him, assuring
me that I could reach home again long before dusk. My father,
who I knew would never permit me to go, was absent, and so--I ran
away. Sir Harry had a carriage waiting, but, almost as soon as
the door was closed upon us, and we had started, I began to be
afraid of him and--and--"
"Sir Harry, as I said before, is an unpleasant animal," I nodded.
"Thank Heaven," she pursued, "we had not gone very far before the
chaise broke down! And--the rest you know."
The footpath we had been following now led over a stile into a
narrow lane or byway. Very soon we came to a high stone wall
wherein was set a small wicket. Through this she led me, and we
entered a broad park where was an avenue of fine old trees,
beyond which I saw the gables of a house, for the stars had long
since paled to the dawn, and there was a glory in the east.
"Your father will be rejoiced to have you safe back again," said
I.
"Yes," she nodded, "but he will be very angry." And, hereupon,
she stopped and began to pull, and twist, and pat her shining
hair with dexterous white fingers, talking thus the while: "My mother died at my birth, and since then father has worshipped
her memory, and his face always grows wonderfully gentle when he
looks upon her portrait. They say I'm greatly like her--though
she was a famous beauty in her day. And, indeed, I think there
must be some truth in it, for, no matter how I may put him out,
my father can never be very angry when my hair is dressed so."