Virgie awoke, so to speak, from her numbness in the train, somewhere between London and Derby.

She was sitting, with her pile of light literature and fashion papers, opposite the man who had married her, and who was to all appearance immersed in the folios of blue foolscap, which he was marking here and there with red pencil. The doc.u.ments, so far as she could judge, were leases.

The motion of the train had lulled her into a short nap, and it seemed as if quite suddenly she was wide awake, and pinching herself to make sure that it was not all a dream. Here was a man who had, as it were, leaped at a girl, and married her in such hot haste that there was no time for reflection. One argued, one a.s.sumed, the strong feeling which made such behaviour credible. Yet now he sat, as a man twenty years married might sit, marking pa.s.sages in a lease with red pencil, while his few hours' bride, in all her delicate loveliness, faced him, neglected, ignored.

Surely this was puzzling!

Had she but known, her own demeanour was much more surprising to him than his could be to her. He was wondering when an outburst of wounded vanity would come, how much longer she could refrain from comment upon his behaviour. Surely she must be piqued beyond endurance, she who imagined herself to have captured his heart at a glance, and was doubtless pondering the question of exactly what her conquest represented, in money, luxury, and pleasure.

His seemingly absorbed attention had, as a fact, hardly wandered from her for an instant since they met that morning; and the results of his observations were not according to his expectation. So far, she had not merely been pliant, she had seemed grateful for kindness. Of course he knew her to be badly frightened. At the Savoy, for a few minutes, under the influence of gay surroundings and champagne, there had been, as he thought, a glimpse of the real woman--the coquette incarnate. It had vanished, however, the moment he set his heavy hand thereon.

Now she sat before him in her Dresden china daintiness, a picture of luxury, carefully tended down to her very finger-nails. While she slept he had perused the features that moved him so vitally--the well remembered breadth of brow and pointedness of chin, the deep setting of the shadowy eyes, the lines of the throat, the base of which rose milky from its setting of misty chiffon.

As soon as she stirred, he returned to his blue foolscap. Now she was returning his compliment--studying him.

Reluctantly she found that experience was confirming the judgment she had formed instantaneously at Hertford House. She did not like her husband's face, and could hardly say why this was so, since in a virile, somewhat rough-hewn fashion, his features were good. She was just saying to herself, "It is the expression that is wrong; it must be the expression," when he raised his head, met her eyes, and smiled in the way she was learning to dislike.

"Well, don't you think I am an ideal husband?" he asked.

She answered his smile. "That remains to be seen," she countered.

"At least," he said, "I fulfil the one essential condition, don't I?

The one thing needful for husbands?"

"What is that?"

"Why, a long purse, of course."

She coloured warmly, and showed, by downcast eye and close-pressed lips, how this wounded. She felt that she had nothing to say in reply, except a low, reproachful, "Oh!" in the shock of such an unkindness.

"Not very tactful of me, was it, to taunt you with the amiable weakness which has procured me the lifelong privilege of your society?"

"Amiable weakness?" she repeated vaguely.

"The woman's desire for physical comforts, luxury, and so on, at any cost."

"Oh," murmured Virgie, "I don't think--indeed, I'm sure you don't understand."

"No? We must discuss the matter at greater length; but as I told you this morning, I dislike talking in the train. We shall be at Luton in a minute, and I telegraphed for a tea-basket."

The train slowed down as he spoke. He rose, leaned from the window, and took the tray from the boy who was waiting on the platform.

Virginia poured out the tea, and dispensed the bread and b.u.t.ter and cake with a sinking heart.

Of all the things she had antic.i.p.ated, unkindness from her newly made husband had been farthest from her thoughts. Her maiden terrors had concerned themselves in the opposite direction. She had feared demonstrative display of feeling which as yet she must be unable to reciprocate. His att.i.tude froze her timid efforts to make friends. The remaining words that pa.s.sed between them during the journey were negligible, except for once, when he looked up suddenly--they were pa.s.sing a lonely stretch of moorland, and he had been gazing from the window--and said:

"So you think you will like living in the country?"

"I know I shall. I have always lived in the country," she replied.

"Not with me," was his comment, while a faint smile crossed his eyes.

"No. Not with you," was her gentle answer.

She wanted to speak to him, to tell him how well she meant to keep her new-made vows, that though her marriage was, as he must know, a marriage of convenience, she intended to do her duty to the utmost limit of her powers. But he said he did not like talking in the train; and her spirits were so exhausted that she dare not risk a breakdown.

She remained, therefore, rapt in the silence which seemed the sole alternative, until they reached their journey's end.

A brougham awaited them, drawn by a pair of fine horses. There followed a drive of more than five miles through country which grew each moment wilder and more beautiful. They came at last to a pine wood, set among swelling uplands. A lodge gate here flanked the road, and as the lodge-keeper's child opened it, and touched his forelock, Virginia guessed that they were in their own domain.

The trees were so thick and dark as to produce a premature twilight.

Through this they drove for the best part of a mile. The name of Omberleigh could be well understood. It was, indeed, a place of shadows. The house stood in the depths of the wood, so far as the side from which they approached was concerned. It was a Georgian house, straight and square, with a cla.s.sic porch of grey stone, supported upon columns.

The house door stood open, and revealed a dark hall, somewhat untidy, and furnished with big black cupboards, surmounted by foxes' masks, antlers, and stuffed fish. On its shabby turkey carpet stood an elderly man-servant, a middle-aged parlourmaid, and a grey-haired woman who was presumably a cook-housekeeper. All of them looked as though they were patiently trying to grapple with undeserved calamity in the shape of a new mistress.

"Mrs. Wells, this is my wife," said Gaunt, in tones that sounded as if he were trying to conceal his triumph.

"I am sure I wish you joy, ma'am," replied Mrs. Wells, with an implied despair of the fulfilment of any such wish.

Virginia was used to a large household. She slipped off her glove, and shook hands kindly with Mrs. Wells. "Thank you so much. I am sure I shall be happy in this beautiful place," said she cordially.

"This is Hemming, who has been with me a great many years," went on Gaunt, indicating the man-servant, who murmured, "Namely fifteen," as he glanced at the fair creature standing there, who looked, as he afterwards remarked, like a fairy strayed in from the woods.

"And this is Grover, who will wait upon you," he went on. "Grover, you had better take Mrs. Gaunt straight upstairs. Hemming, let the men carry up the luggage into Mrs. Gaunt's room forthwith."

"This way, ma'am," said Grover, distantly. She took the dust-cloak which Virgie had slipped off, flashing a glance of reluctant admiration as she did so at the pretty frock displayed. The staircase was on the dark side of the house, and the corridor above seemed very sombre to the girl as she followed her guide.

Her bedroom was big and old-fashioned, with three high sash windows, set deep in the walls. This lay on the other side of the house, and the bride stepped forward into the full glory of a sunset, far over land which sloped away downward in a wide prospect. The aspect of this side of the house was south with a touch of west.

Grover was pleased at the involuntary cry of pleasure which the new mistress gave as she went to one of the windows and gazed out. She thawed a little as she pointed out to the eager girl the fine hill which was the pride of their part of the county, Gladby Top.

The men brought up the boxes, and by the time she had arrayed Virginia in the frock which young Mr. Bent so much admired in Bryanston Square, Grover had laid aside the greater part of her resentment, and was inclined to think that very few of the neighbouring families could show anything in the way of a bride approaching the quality of the specimen just brought to Omberleigh.

"You can excuse him and understand him, if you take what I mean," she said later on in the kitchen. "Most times there's really no knowing what it is as takes their fancy when they get to his age. But with her--well, I don't see how he could help himself! If she was to be had, right he was to snap her up. What seems odd to me is that she should have taken him, for you can see she's a tip-topper--none of your soap-makers' daughters, but real gentry."

Grover showed the bride downstairs into the drawing-room with an uncomfortable feeling that it was not an adequate setting for so fair and youthful a presence. Virginia had not lingered over her dressing, and found that there was half an hour yet before the dinner would be served. She stood in the long, bare room, probably last re-furnished in the '60's, and gazed about her forlornly. This room was on the sunny side of the house, and its windows opened upon a paved terrace with an Italian bal.u.s.trade in stone.

She strayed across the Brussels carpet to the window, and stood there gazing out upon the falling slopes of a garden--yes, a garden--but as it seemed to her a somewhat bare one. There was just enough bedding-out to make a meagre display; but when she thought of the flaming herbaceous flowers which ought to fill those long border edgings, of the Alpine plants which ought to bloom from every cleft in those limestone walls, she sighed at the thought of wasted opportunities. The tastes of the master of the house were not for horticulture, it appeared.

The thought of his sneer at her for a mercenary marriage rushed to her mind. This husband--this stranger--what manner of man was he? What was to be her fate at his hands? The doubt and terror turned her blood to water. She put her two hands to her throat to keep down the swelling sobs. Then she turned swiftly, instinctively backward, and saw that Gaunt had noiselessly entered, and stood just behind her.

"Well," he said, "it is done now. The trap has closed behind you, and you cannot get out. What do you think of your life-sentence?"

A sudden determination came to her not to show fear. His manner was that of one grimly jesting. She answered playfully, "I think my jailer likes to tease."

"Well," he went on, "you walked into the snare with your eyes open. You knew nothing of me, did you, beyond the one glorious fact that I am rich? Nothing else mattered. My negligence, my rudeness, my neglect, could not drive you from your purpose. True daughter of Virginia Sheringham, you have made your bed, and now you must lie upon it."

His wife's eyes flashed, and her answer came clearly. "Pardon me! You say that I knew nothing of you but that you were rich. That is not true. I knew that you were a man of whom my own mother thought so well that she engaged herself to marry you. I knew also--or guessed--that you were lonely and unhappy. I could see that you were--lame."

"What?" he cut her off short. "You have the a.s.surance to tell me to my face that my infirmity was a reason for your marrying me? You thought that you could elude the vigilance of a lame man--was that it? But though I limp I am no cripple. In fact, I am particularly active--active enough to guard you very carefully, as I warn you."