Alicia woke up from a brown-study of her own.  She was dressed with her usual perfection in a gray cloth, just suggesting the change of season.  Her felt hat with its plume of feathers lay on her lap, and her hair, slightly loosened by the journey, captured the eye by its abundance and beauty.  The violets on her breast perfumed the room, and the rings upon her hands flashed just as much as is permitted to an unmarried girl, and no more.  As Mrs. Fotheringham looked at her, she said to herself:  “Another Redfern!  Really Alicia is too extravagant!”

On that head no one could have reproached herself.  A cheap coat and skirt, much worn, a hat of no particular color or shape, frayed gloves and disreputable boots, proclaimed both the parsimony of her father’s will and the independence of her opinions.

“Oh, of course he proposed on the hill,” replied Alicia, thoughtfully.  “And you say, Aunt Lucy, that he guessed—­and she knew nothing?  Yes!—­I was certain he guessed.”

“But she knows now,” said Lady Lucy; “and, of course, we must all be very sorry for her.”

“Oh, of course!” said Isabel.  “But she will soon get over it.  You won’t find it will do her any harm.  People will make her a heroine.”

“I should advise her not to go about with that cousin,” said Alicia, softly.

“The girl who told you?”

“She was an outsider!  She told me, evidently, to spite her cousin, who seemed not to have paid her enough attention, and then wanted me to swear secrecy.”

“Well, if her mother was a sister of Juliet Sparling, you can’t expect much, can you?  What a mercy it has all come out so soon!  The mess would have been infinitely greater if the engagement had gone on a few weeks.”

“My dear,” said her mother, gravely, “we must not reckon upon Oliver’s yielding to our persuasions.”

Isabel smiled and shrugged her shoulders.  Oliver condemn himself to the simple life!—­to the forfeiture of half a million of money—­for the sake of the beaux yeux of Diana Mallory!  Oliver, who had never faced any hardship or gone without any luxury in his life!

Alicia said nothing; but the alertness of her brilliant eyes showed the activity of the brain behind them.  While Mrs. Fotheringham went off to committees, Miss Drake spent the rest of the day in ministering to Lady Lucy, who found her company, her gossip about Beechcote, her sympathetic yet restrained attitude toward the whole matter, quite invaluable.  But, in spite of these aids, the hours of waiting and suspense passed heavily, and Alicia said to herself that Cousin Lucy was beginning to look frail.

CHAPTER XIII

Owing to the scantiness of Sunday trains, Marsham did not arrive at Beechcote village till between nine and ten at night.  He left his bag at the village inn, tried to ignore the scarcely concealed astonishment with which the well-known master—­or reputed master—­of Tallyn was received within its extremely modest walls, and walked up to the manor-house.  There he had a short conversation with Mrs. Colwood, who did not propose to tell Diana of his arrival till the morning.