Beyond the Rocks

"Beechleigh!" he mumbled, absently. "Who lives there? I don't even know.

I am going home."

"Why, Hector, of course you know! The Fitzgeralds--Sir Patrick and Lady

Ada. Every one does."

Then it came to him. These were Theodora's uncle and aunt. Was it

possible she could be going there, too? He recollected she had told him

in Paris her father had written to this brother of his about her coming

to London. She might be going. It was a chance, and he must ascertain at

once.

Sir Patrick Fitzgerald he knew at the Turf, and now that he thought of

it he knew Lady Ada by sight quite well, and he was aware he would be a

welcome guest at any house. If Theodora was going, he expected the thing

could be managed. Meanwhile, he must find her, and get rid of Morella

Winmarleigh. He hurried her on through the blue salon and the yellow

salon and out into the gallery beyond. Theodora had completely

disappeared.

Miss Winmarleigh kept up a constant chatter of commonplaces, to which,

when he replied at all, he gave random answers.

And every moment she became more annoyed and uneasy.

She had known Hector since she was a child. Their places adjoined in the

country, and she saw him constantly when there. Her stolid vanity had

never permitted the suggestion to come to her that he had always been

completely indifferent to her. She intended to marry him. His mother

shared her wishes. They were continually thrown together, and the

thought of her as a probable ending to his life when all pleasures

should be over had often entered his head.

Before he met Theodora, if he had ever analyzed his views about Morella,

they probably would have been that she was a safe bore with a great

many worldly advantages. A woman who you could be sure would not take a

lover a few years after you had married her, and whom he would probably

marry if she were still free when the time came.

His flittings from one pretty matron to another had not caused her grave

anxieties. He could not marry them, and he never talked with girls or

possible rivals. So she had always felt safe and certain that fate would

ultimately make him her husband.

But this was different--he had never been like this before. And

uneasiness grabbed at her well-regulated heart.

"Ah, there is my mother!" he exclaimed, at last, with such evident

relief that Morella began to feel spiteful.

They made their way to where Lady Bracondale was standing. She beamed

upon them like a pleased pussy-cat. It looked so suitable to see them

thus together!