Day after day was spent at Brandon House in the usual occupations of a country mansion. There were walks, and rides, and drives, and shooting parties; and the fact most important for Charles Dudley was, that he was frequently alone for more than an hour together with Eda Brandon. All was explained, all was promised, all was understood. In less than two months she would be of age, her hand and her property at her own disposal; and Dudley felt angry at himself, from a sensation of regret which he experienced, that he did not still possess the ancient estates of his house, that he might unite himself to her for ever, as pride termed it, upon equal terms. Those were very, very happy interviews; sometimes over the green lawns or shady groves of the park, sometimes alone in the library or the drawing-room, sometimes sitting side by side near the river, or in the deep wood, and talking with a melancholy pleasure over the past, or looking forward with a cheerful hope unto the future. They wondered sometimes that these communications were so little interrupted, and that nobody observed or attempted to interfere; but Sir Arthur Adelon was frequently absent on business as he said; Lord Hadley was seized with a passion for roaming about the country, which he had never displayed before; and a sort of irritable gloom had fallen upon Edgar Adelon, the cause of which he explained to no one, but which was easily seen by the eyes of his cousin. He often sought solitude, shut himself up in his own room, walked, when he went forth, in a different direction from the rest of the party, and seemed involved in thought, even when Eda and himself, and Dudley, were together without witnesses.