“How do you know he was a soldier?” quickly
rejoined Mr. Carlyle.
“Afy told me so. ‘The Captain’
she used to call him; but she said he was not a captain
yet awhile—the next grade to it, a—a——”
“Lieutenant?” suggested Mr. Carlyle.
“Yes, sir, that was it—Lieutenant
Thorn.”
“Joyce,” said Mr. Carlyle, “has
it never struck you that Afy is more likely to have
followed Lieutenant Thorn than Richard Hare?”
“No, sir,” answered Joyce; “I have
felt certain always that she is with Richard Hare,
and nothing can turn me from the belief. All West
Lynne is convinced of it.”
Mr. Carlyle did not attempt to “turn her from
her belief.” He dismissed her, and sat
on still, revolving the case in all its bearings.
Richard Hare’s short interview with his mother
had soon terminated. It lasted but a quarter
of an hour, both dreading interruptions from the servants;
and with a hundred pounds in his pocket, and desolation
in his heart, the ill-fated young man once more quitted
his childhood’s home. Mrs. Hare and Barbara
watched him steal down the path in the telltale moonlight,
and gain the road, both feeling that those farewell
kisses they had pressed upon his lips would not be
renewed for years, and might not be forever.
The church clocks at West Lynne struck eight one lovely
morning in July, and then the bells chimed out, giving
token that it was Sunday.
East Lynne had changed owners, and now it was the
property of Mr. Carlyle. He had bought it as
it stood, furniture and all; but the transfer had
been conducted with secrecy, and was suspected by none,
save those engaged in the negotiations. Whether
Lord Mount Severn thought it might prevent any one
getting on the scent, or whether he wished to take
farewell of a place he had formerly been fond of, certain
it is that he craved a week or two’s visit to
it. Mr. Carlyle most readily and graciously acquiesced;
and the earl, his daughter, and retinue had arrived
the previous day.
West Lynne was in ecstacies. It called itself
an aristocratic place, and it indulged hopes that
the earl might be intending to confer permanently
the light of his presence, by taking up his residence
again at East Lynne. The toilettes prepared to
meet his admiring eyes were prodigious and pretty
Barbara Hare was not the only young lady who had thereby
to encounter the paternal storm.
Miss Carlyle was ready for church at the usual time,
plainly, but well dressed. As she and Archibald
were leaving their house, they saw something looming
up the street, flashing and gleaming in the sun.
A pink parasol came first, a pink bonnet and feather
came behind it, a gray brocaded dress and white gloves.
“The vain little idiot!” ejaculated Miss
Carlyle. But Barbara smiled up the street toward
them, unconscious of the apostrophe.
