‘Wagging his tail lazily, as if beating time to some tune that was running in his head.’ ‘We stood by the wicket, watching the last load of hay winding slowly through the lanes. I seized the moment’—— ‘You seized something else.’ ‘Your hand. If you had only known how nervous I was! I pressed your fingers to my lips. “Laura, I love you,” I stammered out.’ ‘“Darling Laura,” was what he said,’ murmured Lady Dimsdale to herself. ‘Before I had time for another word, Hannah came hurrying down the steps.’ ‘Dear old Hannah, with her mob-cap and prim white apron. I seem to see her now.’ ‘She had an open paper in her hand. Your aunt had been taken ill, and you were instructed to go to her by the first train. You gave me one look—a look that haunted me for years—and went into the house without a word. An hour later, I saw you at the train; but your father was there, and he kept you by his side till the last moment.’ ‘That miserable journey! For the first twenty miles I was alone; then an old lady got in. “Dear me, how damp this carriage feels,” she said. I rather fancy I had been crying.’ ‘And we never met after that, till last evening.’ ‘Never!’ murmured Lady Dimsdale almost inaudibly. ‘Two days after our parting, I was ordered abroad; but I wrote to you, not once or twice only, but many times.’ ‘Not one line from you did I ever receive.’ ‘Then my letters must have been intercepted. I addressed them to your aunt’s house in Scotland, where you were staying at the time.’ ‘Aunt Judith had set her heart on my marrying Sir Thomas Dimsdale.’ ‘And would not let my letters reach you. Week after week and month after month, I waited for an answer, hoping against hope; but none ever came.’ ‘Week after week and month after month, I waited for a letter from you; but none ever came.’ ‘And your Aunt Judith—she who intercepted my letters—was accounted a good woman.’ ‘An excellent woman. Even on wet Sundays, she always went to church twice.’ ‘So excellent, that at length she persuaded you to marry Sir Thomas.’ ‘It was not her persuasion that induced me to marry. It was to save my father from ruin.’ ‘What a sacrifice!’ ‘You must not say that. How could anything I might do for my father’s sake be accounted a sacrifice?’ Oscar Boyd did not answer. Lady Dimsdale’s white slender fingers were busy with the arrangement of her flowers, and he seemed absorbed in watching them. ‘And you too married?’ she said at length in a low voice. ‘I did—but not till more than a year after I read the notice of your marriage in the newspapers. Life seemed no longer worth living. I cared not what became of me. I fell into the toils of an adventuress, who after a time inveigled me into marrying her.’ ‘Your marriage was an unhappy one?’ ‘Most unhappy. After a few months, we separated, and I never saw my wife again. Her fate was a sad one. A year or two later, a steamer she was on board of was lost at sea; and so far as is known, not a soul survived to tell the tale.’