In the stillness that had fallen upon her Elizabeth rose softly, and made her preparations for the night.

Archdale came down early the next morning.  He stood a few moments in the hall waiting for the appearance of the person he had come to meet.  As he looked out into the garden, a picture seemed to rise before him, one that was not within his horizon at present.  He seemed to be looking out into a garden as he had been that morning when, with his mother, Sir Temple and Lady Dacre, he had paid a visit to Madam Pepperell.  Looking into this garden absently he had seen Elizabeth.  Unaware of visitors in the house, she was going on with her occupation of gathering roses.  Archdale the day before, wondering about her complicity with Edmonson’s scheme had had this vision of her come between him and any belief in this.  It came again that next morning as he was waiting to see Edmonson alone, and imagined his mind full only of what he had learned from him the day before.  He remembered the expression of her face; he had never seen it gentle like this.  She had been standing only a few rods distant with scarcely so much as her profile turned toward him.  A cluster was in her left hand; in her right a stem just broken off, holding a rose and several buds.  She was perfectly still, seeming to have forgotten to move, to be lost in reverie.  She saw him no more than her roses; she was alone with her thoughts.  There was a strength and a sadness in the delicate outline, especially in the mouth, which he had not seen before, perhaps, because he had never studied her profile.  As he had thought of this expression while he had stood before the uncovered portrait, he had said to himself that certainly she had not been willingly concerned in helping forward another’s misfortune.  While he sat watching her he had been inclined to go to her, obeying his impulse rather than his judgment, which told him that even if he were in any way the cause of her sorrow, he could do nothing to help her.  But Lady Dacre had spoken to him at the moment, and before he could answer her he had seen a servant go up to Elizabeth, and had perceived that she was coming into the house.

This morning also it was Lady Dacre’s voice that broke in upon him.  She was hurrying through the hall with eyes on the open door.

“Good morning,” she said.  “Has Madam Archdale gone into the garden yet?  I told her I should be there first this morning, and now she has stolen a march upon me.”  Archdale was startled.  Yes, his mother was in the garden, he saw her now.  Was the other only a vision?  “Will you follow, Temple?” cried her ladyship.  Her husband, who had been coming down stairs as his wife spoke, greeted Archdale hastily and accepted her invitation, for some one else stood in the hall, having entered it, his observer supposed, from the library, for he had not seen him on the stairs.  This other one was coming forward to his host when Sir Temple passed, and in another moment he stood face to face with Archdale.