Owen called to his coachman to hasten.  They had wasted, he said, too much time over the tea-table, and might miss the train.  But they did not miss it, and through the heat of the long, summer afternoon the slow train jogged peacefully through the beautiful undulations of the southern counties.  The sky was quiet gold and torquoise blue, and far away were ruby tinted clouds.  A peaceful light floated over the hillsides and dozed in the hollows, and the happiness of the world seemed eternal.  Deep, cool shadows filled the copses, and the green corn was a foot high in the fields, and every gate and hedgerow wore a picturesque aspect.  Evelyn and Owen sat opposite each other, talking in whispers, for they were not alone; they had not been in time to secure a private carriage.  The delight that filled their hearts was tender as the light in the valleys and the hill sides.  But Evelyn’s feelings were the more boisterous, for she was entering into life, whereas Owen thought he was at last within reach of the ideal he had sought from the beginning of his life.

This feeling, which was very present in his mind, appeared somehow through his eyes and in his manner, and even through the tumult of her emotions she was vaguely aware that he was even nicer than she had thought.  She had never loved him so much as now; and again the thought passed that she had not known him before, and far down in her happiness she wondered which was the true man.

CHAPTER TEN

From Dover they telegraphed to Mr. Innes—­“Your daughter is safe.  She has gone abroad to study singing;” and at midnight they were on board the boat.  The night was strangely calm and blue; a little mist was about, and they stood watching the circle of light which the vessel shed upon the water, moving ever onwards, with darkness before and after.

“Dearest, what are you thinking of?”

“Of father.  He has received our message by now.  Poor dad, he won’t sleep to-night.  To-morrow they will all have the news, and on Sunday in church they will ‘be talking about it.’”

“But your voice would have been wasted.  Your father would have reproached himself; he would think he had sacrificed you to his music.”

“Which wouldn’t be true.”

“True or false, he’d think it.  Besides, it would be true in a measure.”

Evelyn told Owen of her interview with her father that morning, and he said—­

“You acted nobly.”

“Nobly?  Owen!”

“There was nobility in your conduct.”

“He’ll be so lonely, so lonely.  And,” she exclaimed, clasping her hands, “who will play the viola da gamba?”

“When I bring you back a great singer ... there’ll be substantial consolation in that.”

“But he won’t close his eyes to-night, and he’ll miss me at breakfast and at dinner—­his poor dinner all by himself.”

“But you don’t want to go back to him?  You love me as much as your father?”