‘Oh!’ said Soane, staring helplessly at the angry beauty, ’if that be all—­’

‘That is all!’ she cried.  ‘Do you understand?  That is all.’

He bowed gravely.  ’Then I am glad that I have been of use to you.  That at least,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ she said drily.  ’I am going into the house now.  I need not trouble you farther.’

And sweeping him a curtsey that might have done honour to a duchess, she turned and sailed away, the picture of disdain.  But when her face was safe from his gaze and he could no longer see them, her eyes filled with tears of shame and vexation; she had to bite her trembling lip to keep them back.  Presently she slackened her speed and almost stopped—­then hurried on, when she thought that she heard him following.  But he did not overtake her, and Julia’s step grew slow again, and slower until she reached the portico.

Between love and pride, hope and shame, she had a hard fight; happily a coach was unloading, and she could stand and feign interest in the passengers.  Two young fellows fresh from Bath took fire at her eyes; but one who stared too markedly she withered with a look, and, if the truth be told, her fingers tingled for his ears.  Her own ears were on the alert, directed backwards like a hare’s.  Would he never come?  Was he really so simple, so abominably stupid, so little versed in woman’s ways?  Or was he playing with her?  Perhaps, he had gone into the town?  Or trudged up the Salisbury road; if so, and if she did not see him now, she might not meet him until the next morning; and who could say what might happen in the interval?  True, he had promised that he would not leave Marlborough without seeing her; but things had altered between them since then.

At last—­at last, when she felt that her pride would allow her to stay no longer, and she was on the point of going in, the sound of his step cut short her misery.  She waited, her heart beating quickly, to hear his voice at her elbow.  Presently she heard it, but he was speaking to another; to a coarse rough man, half servant half loafer, who had joined him, and was in the act of giving him a note.  Julia, outwardly cool, inwardly on tenterhooks, saw so much out of the corner of her eye, and that the two, while they spoke, were looking at her.  Then the man fell back, and Sir George, purposely averting his gaze and walking like a man heavy in thought, went by her; he passed through the little crowd about the coach, and was on the point of disappearing through the entrance, when she hurried after him and called his name.

He turned, between the pillars, and saw her.  ’A word with you, if you please,’ she said.  Her tone was icy, her manner freezing.

Sir George bowed.  ‘This way, if you please,’ she continued imperiously; and preceded him across the hall and through the opposite door and down the steps to the gardens, that had once been Lady Hertford’s delight.  Nor did she pause or look at him until they were halfway across the lawn; then she turned, and with a perfect change of face and manner, smiling divinely in the sunlight,