But the fox-hunters liked good drinking as well as good eating, and sat
on, enjoying their wine; their host, one of the most courteous of living
men, giving no sign, by word or look, that he wished for their departure.
He was rather silent, they observed; but the young clergyman, who made
the fourth at the table, was voluble by nature. Captain Kirton had not
yet left his sick bed.
Lady Maude sat alone in her room; the white robes upon her, the orthodox
veil, meant to shade her fair face thrown back from it. She had sent away
her attendants, bolted the door against her mother, and sat waiting her
summons. Waiting and thinking. Her cheek rested on her hand, and her
eyes were dreamy.
Is it true that whenever we are about to do an ill or unjust deed a
shadow of the fruits it will bring comes over us as a warning? Some
people will tell you so. A vision of the future seemed to rest on Maude
Kirton as she sat there; and for the first time all the injustice of the
approaching act rose in her mind as a solemn omen. The true facts were
terribly distinct. Her own dislike (it was indeed no less than dislike)
of the living lord, her lasting love for the dead one. All the miserable
stratagems they had been guilty of to win him; the dishonest plotting and
planning. What was she about to do? For her own advancement, to secure
herself a position in the great world, and not for love, she was about to
separate two hearts, which but for her would have been united in this
world and the next.
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