"Now, my dear, I am afraid I shall have to talk business. I shall be too busy to come over to-morrow." He laughed. "You see I have left all my other clients' affairs, to come after my stray lamb: I expect I shall find them in a pretty muddle. Now, my dear, before I go I should like you to tell me exactly what you would like to do. As I have explained to you, you are now the mistress of a very large fortune with which you can do absolutely what you like. Would you like to live here, or would you like to take a house in London, or go abroad?"

Ida looked up a little piteously.

"Oh, not go to London or abroad!" she said. "Can I not live here? If you knew how I feel--how the sight of the place, the thought that I am under the old roof again--"

She looked round the faded, stately room lovingly, wistfully, and Mr.

Wordley nodded sympathetically.

"Of course you can, my dear," he said. "But equally o' course, you will now want to restore the old place. There is a great deal to be done, and I thought that perhaps you would like to go away while the work was being carried on."

Ida shook her head.

"No, I would like to stay, even if I have to live in the kitchen or one of the garrets. It will be a delight to me to watch the men at work; I should never grow tired of it."

"I quite understand, my dear," he said. "I honour you for that feeling.

Well, then, I shall engage an architect of repute, the first in his profession"--he rubbed his hands with an air of enjoyment--"and he shall restore the old place, with a respect and reverence. I think I know the man to employ; and we will start at once, so that no time may be lost, I want to see you settled in your proper position here. The thought of it gives me a new lease of life! Of course, you will want a proper establishment; more servants both in the house and out of it; you will want carriages and horses; both the lodges must be rebuilt, and the old avenue opened out and put in order. Heron Hall was one of the finest places in the county and it shall be so again."

"And Jessie shall be the housekeeper and Jason the butler," said Ida, with a laugh of almost child-like enjoyment. "Oh, it all seems like a dream; and I feel that at any moment I may wake and find myself at Laburnum Villa. And, oh, Mr. Wordley, I shall want some more money at once. I want to send the Herons a present, a really nice present that will help them, I hope, to forget the trouble I caused them. Poor people! it was not their fault; they did not understand." Mr. Wordley snorted.

"There is one topic of conversation, my dear Miss Ida, I shall be compelled to bar," he said. "I never want to hear Mr. John Heron's name again. As to sending them a present, you can, of course, send them anything you like, to the half of your kingdom; though, if you ask me whether they deserve it--"

"I didn't ask you," said Ida, with a laugh, putting her hand on his arm. "If we all got our deserts, how sad it would be for everyone of us."

Mr. Wordley grunted.

"To-morrow I shall pay a sum of money into the bank for you, and you will have to drive over and get a cheque-book; and you can amuse yourself by drawing cheques until I come again."

He lingered as long as he could, and kept the carriage waiting some time; but at last he went and Ida was left alone to face the strange change in her fortune. She sat before the fire dreaming for a few minutes, then she wandered over the old house from room to room; and every room had its memories and a.s.sociations for her. In the library she could almost fancy that her father was sitting in the high-backed chair which was still drawn up in its place to the table; and she went and sat in it and touched with reverent, loving hand the books and papers over which he had been wont to bend. She stood before his portrait and gazed at it with tear-dimmed eyes, and only the consciousness of the love she had borne him enabled her to bear his absence. As she pa.s.sed through the hall the newly risen moon was pouring in through the tall window, and, followed by Donald and Bess, who had not left her for a moment, she opened the great hall door and went on to the terrace, and walking to the end, stood and looked towards the ruined chapel in which her father had buried his treasure.

Up to this moment she had been buoyed up by excitement and the joy and pleasure of her return to the old house; but suddenly there fell a cloud-like depression upon her; she was conscious of an aching void, a lack of something which robbed her heart of all its joy. She had no need to ask herself what it was: she knew too well. Her old home had come back to her, she was the mistress of a large fortune, she stood, as it were, bathed in the sunshine of prosperity; but her heart fell cold and dead, and the sunshine, bright as it was, well-nigh dazzling, indeed, had no warmth in it. She was a great heiress now, would no doubt soon be surrounded by friends. She had been poor and well-nigh friendless that day Stafford had taken her in his arms and kissed her for the first time; but, ah, how happy she had been!

Was it possible, could Fate be so cruel as to decree, that she should never be happy again, never lose the aching pain which racked her heart at every thought of him! She put the fear from her with a feeling of shame and helplessness. She _would_ forget the man who left her for another woman, would not let thought of him cast a shadow over her life and dominate it. No doubt by this time he had quite forgotten her, or, if he remembered her, recalled the past with a feeling of annoyance with which a man regards a pa.s.sing flirtation, pleasant enough while it lasted, but of which he did well to be a little ashamed.

She would not look in the direction of the trees under which he had stood on the night of the day she had first seen him; and she went in with a forced cheerfulness to tell Jessie, listening with wide-open eyes, of some of the strange things which had happened to her. All the time she was talking, she was beset by a longing to ask Jessie about Brae Wood and the Ormes; but she crushed down the idea; and Jessie was too intent upon hearing the story of her mistress's sojourn in London to have any breath or inclination to tell any of the dale news. Of course Ida did not speak of the disagreement at Laburnum Villa, but she gave Jessie an account of the accident and her experiences of a hospital ward; at all which Jessie uttered "Ohs" and "Ahs" with bated breath and gaping month. It was late before Ida got to bed, and later still before she fell asleep; for, somehow, now that she was back at Herondale the memory of that happy past grew more vivid; in fact, the whole place was haunted by the spectre of her lost love: and of all spectres this is the most sad and heart-possessing.

She was out on Rupert as early as possible the next morning, and it was difficult to say which was the more pleased at the reunion, he or his mistress. And oh, what a delight it was to ride across the moor and along the valley and by the stream; to see the cattle grazing and to hear the sheep calling to one another in the old plaintive way! It was almost difficult to believe that she had ever left Herondale that Laburnum Villa was anything but a nightmare and the Herons a dismal unreality.

Now, for some time, she avoided that part of the road where the opening of the plantation gave a view of the Villa; but she was drawn towards it at last, and she leant forward on her horse and looked across the lake at the great, white place shining in the autumn sunlight. It seemed very still and quiet, and there was no sign of life about the place; the lake itself was deserted save by one of the steamers on which were only a few pa.s.sengers well wrapped-up against the now keen air. The appearance of the white, long-stretching place struck her with a sense of desertion, and desolation, and with a sigh she turned and rode away.

That afternoon, as she was coming in from the stable Jessie came running towards her.

"Oh, Miss Ida, there's Lord and Lady Bannerdale and Lady Vayne and two of the young ladies in the drawing-room."

"Very well," said Ida, quietly; and removing her right-hand gauntlet, she went straight into the drawing-room.

In accordance with her father's wish and her own, perhaps mistaken, pride she had avoided all these people hitherto; but there was no need to avoid them any longer; she was their equal in birth, and her newly discovered wealth effectually removed any cause for pride. Lady Bannerdale, a motherly and good-natured woman, came forward to meet her, and took her by both hands.

"My dear, we have come over at once to tell you how glad we are!" she said. "We heard the good news from Mr. Wordley, and neither I nor my husband could wait another day before we came to congratulate you."

Lady Vayne, too, held Ida's hand and looked at her with affectionate sympathy.

"And we felt the same, my dear," she said; "so you must not think us intrusive."

Ida shook hands with them all and rang for the tea. She was very quiet and subdued, but the little cold look of surprise with which she had at one time met their advances was now absent, and they could perceive that she was glad to see them.

"Our joy in the good news is not altogether unselfish and disinterested, my dear Miss Ida," said Lord Bannerdale. "That Heron Hall should be shut up and deserted, while there is so charming a mistress to represent the old family, was little short of a general misfortune. You cannot tell how anxious and concerned we have been about you--but we will say no more about that. I trust a brighter star has risen above the old house, and that it is entering upon brighter fortunes. At any rate, let that be as it may, we want you to believe how delighted we are to have you back again, and under such happy auspices." "And we want to say, too, dear," said Lady Bannerdale, while Lady Vayne nodded a.s.sentingly, "that we hope you have really come back to us, that you will be one of us and let us see a great deal of you.

Of course, under the circ.u.mstances," she glanced at Ida's black dress, "we are debarred from expressing our pleasure in festivity; but we hope you will come to us quite quietly, and very often, and that you will let us treat you as one of our own dear girls."

Ida murmured a suitable response; but though she was by no means demonstrative they were satisfied; and as they left they expressed that satisfaction to each other.

"Oh, yes, she was glad to see us," Lady Bannerdale said; "and I like her all the better for not meeting us half-way and for refraining from any gushing. Poor girl! I am afraid she has been very ill, and has felt her trouble very keenly. She is much thinner, and when she came into the room there was an expression in her face which touched me and made my eyes dim."

"We must look after her," remarked Lady Vayne. "There is something weird in the idea of her living there all alone; though, of course, her maid, Jessie, will take care of her."

Lady Bannerdale smiled.

"Ida Heron is one of those girls who are quite capable of taking care of themselves," she said. "How wonderfully calm and self-possessed she was. Most girls would have been rather upset, or, at any rate, a little flurried, meeting us all so unexpectedly; but she came into the room with the perfect unself-consciousness which marks--"

"The high-bred lady," finished Lord Bannerdale. "I wonder whether we realise how old a family the Herons is; we are all mushrooms compared with that slim, little girl, who is now the mistress of Herondale and an enormous fortune."

"We shall have to find a husband for her," remarked Lady Vayne, who was the match-maker of the locality.

Lord Bannerdale smiled.

"The trouble would be to get Miss Ida to accept him when you have found him," he said, shrewdly. "I have an idea she would be difficult to please; there is a little curl to those pretty lips of hers which is tolerably significant."

"Poor girl! There is time enough yet to think of such a thing," said Lady Bannerdale, reprovingly; but while she sat it, mother-like, she thought that her son, Edwin, would be home from a long tour in the East in a week or two; that he was particularly good-looking, and in the opinion of more persons than his mother, a particularly amiable and good fellow.

The next day there were more visitors; they all seemed as genuinely glad at her return, and they all made as genuine overtures of friendship. It was evident that Ida need not be alone in the world any longer, unless she wished to be. On the morning of the third day, as she was riding to Bryndermere, with some shopping as an excuse, she met Mr. Wordley; a gentleman was sitting beside him who, Ida guessed, was the architect. He proved to be no less a personage than the famous Mr.

Hartley. They had pulled up for the introduction close by the opening on the lake; and while the architect was exchanging greetings with Ida, his keen eyes wandered now and again to the Villa; and as Ida turned to ride back with them, he said:

"That is rather a fine place over there, Miss Heron; rather bizarre and conspicuous, but striking and rather artistic. New, too: whose is it?"

"Stephen Orme's place," replied Mr. Wordley, in rather a low voice.

"Oh," said Mr. Hartley, with a nod which struck Ida as being peculiarly expressive and significant, though she did not know what it implied.

The three went all over the old Hall and after lunch the great architect explained, with the aid of a sheet of paper and a pencil, his idea of what should be done.

"There need not be, there should not be, the least addition," he said.

"What you want to do, Miss Heron, is, as Mr. Wordley says, restore: restore with all reverence. It is a superb piece of architecture of its kind and it must be touched with a gentle hand. If you are prepared to leave it all to me, I trust I may be able to make the present building worthy of its past. It will be a delightful task for me; but I must tell you frankly that it will cost a very large sum of money; how much I shall be able to inform you when I have got out my plans and gone into the estimate; but, at any rate, I can say emphatically that the place is worth the expenditure. Am I to have _carte blanche_?"

"Yes," said Ida; "I will leave it entirely in your hands."

This at least she could do with the money which her father had so mysteriously made: restore it, the house he had loved so well well, to its old dignity and grandeur.

The great architect, very much impressed not only by the Hall but its beautiful young mistress, left before Mr. Wordley, who wanted to talk over business with Ida. But he found her rather absent-minded and preoccupied and presently, in a pause, she said, with forced calmness: