bent upon his breast, looking neither to the right nor the left, but in
about a quarter of an hour he returned to the spot where the governess
was seated.

"I have been praying," he said--"praying for my darling."

He spoke in a voice little above a whisper, and she saw his face
ineffably calm in the moonlight.




CHAPTER III

HIDDEN RELICS.


The same August sun which had gone down behind the waste of waters
glimmered redly upon the broad face of the old clock over that
ivy-covered archway which leads into the gardens of Audley Court.

A fierce and crimson sunset. The mullioned windows and twinkling
lattices are all ablaze with the red glory; the fading light flickers
upon the leaves of the limes in the long avenue, and changes the still
fish-pond into a sheet of burnished copper; even into those dim recesses
of brier and brushwood, amidst which the old well is hidden, the crimson
brightness penetrates in fitful flashes till the dank weeds and the
rusty iron wheel and broken woodwork seem as if they were flecked with
blood.