heartless. I dare say the poor boy was very dear to you, and of course
Miss Avondale was your friend. Please forgive me!"
Randolph, intent only on that catastrophe which seemed to wreck all
Captain Dornton's hopes and blunt his only purpose for declaring
himself, hurriedly reassured her, yet was not sorry his agitation had
been misunderstood. And what was to be done? There was no train back to
London for four hours. He dare not telegraph, and if he did, could he
trust to his strange patron's wise conduct under the first shock of this
news to his present vacillating purpose? He could only wait.
Luckily for his ungallant abstraction, they were speedily at the
rectory, where a warm welcome from Mr. Brunton, Sibyl's guardian, and
his family forced him to recover himself, and showed him that the
story of his devotion to John Dornton had suffered nothing from Miss
Eversleigh's recital. Distraught and anxious as he was, he could not
resist the young girl's offer after luncheon to show him the church with
the vault of the Dorntons and the tablet erected to John Dornton, and,
later, the Hall, only two miles distant. But here Randolph hesitated.
"I would rather not call on Sir William to-day," he said.
"You need not. He is over at the horse show at Fern Dyke, and won't be
back till late. And if he has been forgathering with his boon companions
he won't be very pleasant company."
"Sibyl!" said the rector in good-humored protest.
"Oh, Mr. Trent has had a little of Cousin Bill's convivial manners
before now," said the young girl vivaciously, "and isn't shocked. But we
can see the Hall from the park on our way to the station."
Even in his anxious preoccupation he could see that the church itself
was a quaint and wonderful preservation of the past. For four centuries
it had been sacred to the tombs of the Dorntons and their effigies in
brass and marble, yet, as Randolph glanced at the stately sarcophagus of
the unknown ticket of leave man, its complacent absurdity, combined with
his nervousness, made him almost hysterical. Yet again, it seemed to him
|