At supper, and for long thereafter he talked of nothing but Blood — of how he would lay him by the heels, and what hideous things he would perform upon his body.  And as he drank heavily the while, his speech became increasingly gross and his threats increasingly horrible; until in the end Arabella withdrew, white-faced and almost on the verge of tears.  It was not often that Bishop revealed himself to his niece.  Oddly enough, this coarse, overbearing planter went in a certain awe of that slim girl.  It was as if she had inherited from her father the respect in which he had always been held by his brother.

Lord Julian, who began to find Bishop disgusting beyond endurance, excused himself soon after, and went in quest of the lady.  He had yet to deliver the message from Captain Blood, and this, he thought, would be his opportunity.  But Miss Bishop had retired for the night, and Lord Julian must curb his impatience — it amounted by now to nothing less — until the morrow.

Very early next morning, before the heat of the day came to render the open intolerable to his lordship, he espied her from his window moving amid the azaleas in the garden.  It was a fitting setting for one who was still as much a delightful novelty to him in womanhood as was the azalea among flowers.  He hurried forth to join her, and when, aroused from her pensiveness, she had given him a good-morrow, smiling and frank, he explained himself by the announcement that he bore her a message from Captain Blood.

He observed her little start and the slight quiver of her lips, and observed thereafter not only her pallor and the shadowy rings about her eyes, but also that unusually wistful air which last night had escaped his notice.

They moved out of the open to one of the terraces, where a pergola of orange-trees provided a shaded sauntering space that was at once cool and fragrant.  As they went, he considered her admiringly, and marvelled at himself that it should have taken him so long fully to realize her slim, unusual grace, and to find her, as he now did, so entirely desirable, a woman whose charm must irradiate all the life of a man, and touch its commonplaces into magic.

He noted the sheen of her red-brown hair, and how gracefully one of its heavy ringlets coiled upon her slender, milk-white neck.  She wore a gown of shimmering grey silk, and a scarlet rose, fresh-gathered, was pinned at her breast like a splash of blood.  Always thereafter when he thought of her it was as he saw her at that moment, as never, I think, until that moment had he seen her.

In silence they paced on a little way into the green shade.  Then she paused and faced him.

“You said something of a message, sir,” she reminded him, thus betraying some of her impatience.

He fingered the ringlets of his periwig, a little embarrassed how to deliver himself, considering how he should begin.  “He desired me,” he said at last, “to give you a message that should prove to you that there is still something left in him of the unfortunate gentleman that... that.., for which once you knew him.”