‘How will she answer me?  Oh, my God! how will she answer?’ he said within himself, as he walked up the romantic winding road, which made so picturesque an approach to Lady Maulevrier’s domain, ’Is my idol gold or clay?  How will she come through the crucible?  Oh, dearest, sweetest, loveliest, only be true to the instinct of your womanhood, and my cup will be full of bliss, and all my days will flow as sweetly as the burden of a song.  But if you prove heartless, if you love the world’s. wealth better than you love me—­ah! then all is over, and you and I are lost to each other for ever.  I have made up my mind.’

His face settled into an expression of indomitable determination, as of a man who would die rather than be false to his own purpose.  There was no glow of hope in his heart.  He had no deep faith in the girl he loved; indeed in his heart of hearts he knew that this being to whom he had trusted his hopes of bliss was no heroine.  She was a lovely, loveable girl, nothing more.  How would she greet him when they met presently on the tennis lawn?  With tears and entreaties, and pretty little deprecating speeches, irresolution, timidity, vacillation, perhaps; hardly with heroic resolve to act and dare for his sake.

There was no one on the tennis lawn when he went there, though the hour was close at hand at which Lesbia had promised to give him his answer.  He sat down in one of the low chairs, glad to rest after his long ramble having had no refreshment but a bottle of soda-water and a biscuit at the cottage by Easedale Tarn.  He waited, calmly as to outward seeming, but with a heavy heart.

’If it were Mary now whom I loved, I should have little fear of the issue,’ he thought, weighing his sweetheart’s character, as he weighed his chances of success.  ’That young termagant would defy the world for her lover.’

He sat in the summer silence for nearly half-an-hour, and still there was no sign of Lady Lesbia.  Her satin-lined workbasket, with the work thrown carelessly across it, was still on the rustic table, just as she had left it when they went to the pine wood.  Waiting was weary work when the bliss of a lifetime trembled in the balance; and yet he did not want to be impatient.  She might find it difficult to get away from her family, perhaps.  She was closely watched and guarded, as the most precious thing at Fellside.

At last the clock struck five, and Hammond could endure delay no longer.  He went round by the flower garden to the terrace before the drawing-room windows, and through an open window to the drawing-room.

Lady Maulevrier was in her accustomed seat, with her own particular little table, magazines, books, newspapers at her side.  Lady Mary was pouring out the tea, a most unusual thing; and Maulevrier was sitting on a stool at her feet, with his knees up to his chin, very warm and dusty, eating pound cake.

‘Where the mischief have you been hiding yourself all day, Jack?’ he called out as Hammond appeared, looking round the room as he entered, with eager, interrogating eyes, for that one figure which was absent.