第70章 THE HONOURABLE LAURA(8)

She hoped and hoped again,but all to no purpose.Captain Northbrook did not alter his mind and return.He was quite a different sort of man from one who altered his mind;that she was at last despairingly forced to admit.And then she left off hoping,and settled down to a mechanical routine of existence which in some measure dulled her grief;but at the expense of all her natural animation and the sprightly wilfulness which had once charmed those who knew her,though it was perhaps all the while a factor in the production of her unhappiness.

To say that her beauty quite departed as the years rolled on would be to overstate the truth.Time is not a merciful master,as we all know,and he was not likely to act exceptionally in the case of a woman who had mental troubles to bear in addition to the ordinary weight of years.Be this as it may,eleven other winters came and went,and Laura Northbrook remained the lonely mistress of house and lands without once hearing of her husband.Every probability seemed to favour the assumption that he had died in some foreign land;and offers for her hand were not few as the probability verged on certainty with the long lapse of time.But the idea of remarriage seemed never to have entered her head for a moment.Whether she continued to hope even now for his return could not be distinctly ascertained;at all events she lived a life unmodified in the slightest degree from that of the first six months of his absence.

This twelfth year of Laura's loneliness,and the thirtieth of her life drew on apace,and the season approached that had seen the unhappy adventure for which she so long had suffered.Christmas promised to be rather wet than cold,and the trees on the outskirts of Laura's estate dripped monotonously from day to day upon the turnpike-road which bordered them.On an afternoon in this week between three and four o'clock a hired fly might have been seen driving along the highway at this point,and on reaching the top of the hill it stopped.A gentleman of middle age alighted from the vehicle.

'You need drive no farther,'he said to the coachman.'The rain seems to have nearly ceased.I'll stroll a little way,and return on foot to the inn by dinner-time.'

The flyman touched his hat,turned the horse,and drove back as directed.When he was out of sight,the gentleman walked on,but he had not gone far before the rain again came down pitilessly,though of this the pedestrian took little heed,going leisurely onward till he reached Laura's park gate,which he passed through.The clouds were thick and the days were short,so that by the time he stood in front of the mansion it was dark.In addition to this his appearance,which on alighting from the carriage had been untarnished,partook now of the character of a drenched wayfarer not too well blessed with this world's goods.He halted for no more than a moment at the front entrance,and going round to the servants'quarter,as if he had a preconceived purpose in so doing,there rang the bell.When a page came to him he inquired if they would kindly allow him to dry himself by the kitchen fire.

The page retired,and after a murmured colloquy returned with the cook,who informed the wet and muddy man that though it was not her custom to admit strangers,she should have no particular objection to his drying himself;the night being so damp and gloomy.

Therefore the wayfarer entered and sat down by the fire.

'The owner of this house is a very rich gentleman,no doubt?'he asked,as he watched the meat turning on the spit.

''Tis not a gentleman,but a lady,'said the cook.

'A widow,I presume?'

'A sort of widow.Poor soul,her husband is gone abroad,and has never been heard of for many years.'

'She sees plenty of company,no doubt,to make up for his absence?'

'No,indeed--hardly a soul.Service here is as bad as being in a nunnery.'