Margaret went along the walk under the pear-tree wall. She had

never been along it since she paced it at Henry Lennox's side.

Here, at this bed of thyme, he began to speak of what she must

not think of now. Her eyes were on that late-blowing rose as she

was trying to answer; and she had caught the idea of the vivid

beauty of the feathery leaves of the carrots in the very middle

of his last sentence. Only a fortnight ago And all so changed!

Where was he now? In London,--going through the old round; dining

with the old Harley Street set, or with gayer young friends of

his own. Even now, while she walked sadly through that damp and

drear garden in the dusk, with everything falling and fading, and

turning to decay around her, he might be gladly putting away his

law-books after a day of satisfactory toil, and freshening

himself up, as he had told her he often did, by a run in the

Temple Gardens, taking in the while the grand inarticulate mighty

roar of tens of thousands of busy men, nigh at hand, but not

seen, and catching ever, at his quick turns, glimpses of the

lights of the city coming up out of the depths of the river. He

had often spoken to Margaret of these hasty walks, snatched in

the intervals between study and dinner. At his best times and in

his best moods had he spoken of them; and the thought of them had

struck upon her fancy.

Here there was no sound. The robin had

gone away into the vast stillness of night. Now and then, a

cottage door in the distance was opened and shut, as if to admit

the tired labourer to his home; but that sounded very far away. A

stealthy, creeping, cranching sound among the crisp fallen leaves

of the forest, beyond the garden, seemed almost close at hand.

Margaret knew it was some poacher. Sitting up in her bed-room

this past autumn, with the light of her candle extinguished, and

purely revelling in the solemn beauty of the heavens and the

earth, she had many a time seen the light noiseless leap of the

poachers over the garden-fence, their quick tramp across the dewy

moonlit lawn, their disappearance in the black still shadow

beyond. The wild adventurous freedom of their life had taken her

fancy; she felt inclined to wish them success; she had no fear of

them. But to-night she was afraid, she knew not why. She heard

Charlotte shutting the windows, and fastening up for the night,

unconscious that any one had gone out into the garden. A small

branch--it might be of rotten wood, or it might be broken by

force--came heavily down in the nearest part of the forest,

Margaret ran, swift as Camilla, down to the window, and rapped at

it with a hurried tremulousness which startled Charlotte within.




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