“But though papa is absent, you will walk up with me now to the Hall to make acquaintance with my aunt, Mrs. Carradyne,” said Eliza, in those tones that, gracious though they were, sounded in the light of a command—­just as poor Katherine’s had always sounded.  And Mr. Grame went with her.

But now—­handsome though she was, gracious though she meant to be—­there was something about Eliza Monk that seemed to repulse Robert Grame, rather than attract him.  Lucy had fascinated him; she repelled.  Other people had experienced the same kind of repulsion, but knew not where it lay.

Hubert, the heir, about twenty-five now, came forward to greet the stranger as they entered the Hall.  No repulsion about him.  Robert Grame’s hand met his with a warm clasp.  A young man of gentle manners and a face of rare beauty—­but oh, so suspiciously delicate!  Perhaps it was the extreme slenderness of the frame, the wan look in the refined features and their bright hectic that drew forth the clergyman’s sympathy.  An impression came over him that this young man was not long for earth.

“Is Mr. Monk strong?” he presently asked of Mrs. Carradyne, when Hubert had temporarily quitted the room.

“Indeed, no.  He had rheumatic fever some years ago,” she added, “and has never been strong since.”

“Has he heart disease?” questioned the clergyman.  He thought the young man had just that look.

“We fear his heart is weak,” replied Mrs. Carradyne.

“But that may be only your fancy, you know, Aunt Emma,” spoke Miss Monk reproachfully.  She and her father were both passionately attached to Hubert; they resented any doubt cast upon his health.

“Oh, of course,” assented Mrs. Carradyne, who never resented anything.

“We shall be good friends, I trust,” said Eliza, with a beaming smile, as her hand lay in Mr. Grame’s when he was leaving.

“Indeed I hope so,” he answered.  “Why not?”

III.

Summer lay upon the land.  The landscape stretched out before Leet Hall was fair to look upon.  A fine expanse of wood and dale, of trees in their luxuriant beauty; of emerald-green plains, of meandering streams, of patches of growing corn already putting on its yellow hue, and of the golden sunlight, soon to set and gladden other worlds, that shone from the deep-blue sky.  Birds sang in their leafy shelters, bees were drowsily humming as they gathered the last of the day’s honey, and butterflies flitted from flower to flower with a good-night kiss.

At one of the windows stood, in her haughty beauty, Eliza Monk.  Not, surely, of the lovely scene before her was she thinking, or her face might have worn a more pleasing expression.  Rather did she seem to gaze, and with displeasure, at two or three people who were walking in the distance:  Lucy Carradyne side by side with the clergyman, and Miss Kate Dancox pulling at his coat-tails.