“My dear child, it’s absurd to be romantic over such a serious matter as marriage–the greatest mistake, I assure you. Nothing could be more suitable than an alliance with this very eligible young man. He plainly thinks so himself. If you are so unreasonable as to throw away this magnificent chance, I shall really feel inclined to give you up in despair.”
“And so I escaped. Her ladyship didn’t like it, but it was worth a tussle.”
“I think we will go for a picnic, Romeo,” said Priscilla.
Raffold Abbey was huge and rambling, girt with many memories. They spent nearly two hours wandering through the house and the old, crumbling chapel.
That evening Priscilla found a letter from her stepmother awaiting her–a briefly worded, urgent summons.
Priscilla’s reply to her stepmother’s summons, written several days later, was a highly unsatisfactory epistle indeed, in the opinion of its recipient. She found it quite impossible to tear herself away from the country while the fine weather lasted, she wrote. She was enjoying herself immensely, and did not feel that she could ever endure the whole of a London season in one dose again.
Priscilla never quite realised afterwards how it was that the whole of that long summer day slipped by and her confession remained still unspoken. She did make one or two attempts to lead round to the subject, but each seemed to be foredoomed to failure, and at last she abandoned the idea–for that day, at least. It seemed, after all, but a paltry thing in face of her great happiness.
Priscilla left a hastily scribbled note for Carfax in Froggy’s keeping. In it she explained that she was obliged to go to town, but that she would meet him there any day before noon at any place that he would appoint. Froggy was to be the medium of his communication also.
“I wonder why Priscilla has put on that severely plain attire? It makes her look almost ugly,” sighed Lady Raffold. “And how dreadfully pale she is to-night! Really, I have never seen her look more unattractive.”
“Funny, wasn’t it, sweetheart?”
A musical soiree was to follow that interminable dinner, and for a time Priscilla was occupied in helping Lady Raffold to receive the after-dinner guests. She longed to escape before the contingent from the dining-room arrived upstairs, but she soon realised the impossibility of this. Her stepmother seemed to want her at every turn, and when at length she found herself free, young Lord Harfield appeared at her elbow.
The soft, drawling accents fell with a gentle sigh through the perfumed silence of the speaker’s boudoir. She was an elderly woman, beautiful, with that delicate, china-like beauty that never fades from youth to age. Not even Lady Raffold’s enemies had ever disputed the fact of her beauty, not even her stepdaughter, firmly though she despised her.
Priscilla leaned back luxuriously in the housekeeper’s room at Raffold Abbey, and laughed upon a deep note of satisfaction. She had discarded all things fashionable with her departure from London in the height of the season. The crumpled linen hat she wore was designed for comfort and not for elegance. Her gown of brown holland was simplicity itself. She sat carelessly with her arm round the neck of an immense mastiff who had followed her in.
It was a Saturday afternoon, warm and slumbrous, and Saturday was the day on which Raffold Abbey was open to the public when the family were away. Priscilla’s presence was, as it were, unofficial, but though she was quite content to have it so, she was determined to escape from sight and hearing of the hot and dusty crowd that thronged the place on a fine day from three o’clock till six.
“There is a crypt below,” Priscilla said, “but we can’t go down without a lantern. Another day, if you cared
