"Lady Delafield, dear Margaret Poyntz's aunt, had been most kind in trying to soothe Lady Haughton's disappointment, which was rudely expressed,--so rudely," added Mrs. Ashleigh, "that it gives us an excuse to leave sooner than had been proposed,--which I am very glad of. Lady Delafield feels much for Mr. Sumner; has invited him to visit her at a place she has near Worthing. She leaves to-morrow in order to receive him; promises to reconcile him to our rejection, which, as he was my poor Gilbert's heir, and was very friendly at first, would be a great relief to my mind. Lilian is well, and so happy at the thoughts of coining back." When I lifted my eyes from these letters I was as a new man, and the earth seemed a new earth. I felt as if I had realized Margrave's idle dreams,--as if youth could never fade, love could never grow cold. "You care for no secrets of mine at this moment," said Margrave, abruptly. "Secrets!" I murmured; "none now are worth knowing. I am loved! I am loved!" "I bide my time," said Margrave; and as my eyes met his, I saw there a look I had never seen in those eyes before, sinister, wrathful, menacing. He turned away, went out through the sash-door of the study; and as he passed towards the fields under the luxuriant chestnut-trees, I heard his musical, barbaric chant,--the song by which the serpent-charmer charms the serpent,--sweet, so sweet, the very birds on the boughs hushed their carol as if to listen. [1] See Sir Humphrey Davy on Heat, Light, and the Combinations of Light CHAPTER XXX. I called that day on Mrs. Poyntz, and communicated to her the purport of the glad news I had received. She was still at work on the everlasting knitting, her firm fingers linking mesh into mesh as she listened; and when I had done, she laid her skein deliberately down, and said, in her favourite characteristic formula,-- "So at last?--that is settled!" She rose and paced the room as men are apt to do in reflection, women rarely need such movement to aid their thoughts; her eyes were fixed on the floor, and one hand was lightly pressed on the palm of the other,--the gesture of a musing reasoner who is approaching the close of a difficult calculation. At length she paused, fronting me, and said dryly,-- "Accept my congratulations. Life smiles on you now; guard that smile, and when we meet next, may we be even firmer friends than we are now!" "When we meet next,--that will be to-night--you surely go to the mayor's great ball? All the Hill descends to Low Town to-night."