Mildred stood silent, looking distressed.
"I wish I had married Lady Louise a month ago, and gone out of the country!" he burst out, vehemently. "I wish I had never seen this girl. She is everything that is objectionable--a half-civilized madcap--shrouded in mystery and poverty--danced over the world in a baggage-wagon. I have quarreled with my mother for the first time on her account. But I love her--I love her with all my heart--and I shall go mad or shoot myself if I don't make her my wife!"
He flung himself impetuously, face downward, on the sofa. Mildred stood pallid and scared in the middle of the floor. Once he lifted his head and looked at her.
"Go away, Milly!" he said, hoarsely. "I'm a savage to frighten you so! Leave me; I shall be better alone."
And Mildred, not knowing what else to do, went.
Next morning, hours before Lady Kingsland was out of bed, Lady Kingsland's son was galloping over the breezy hills and golden downs. An hour's hard run, and he made straight for Hunsden Hall.
Miss Hunsden was taking a constitutional up and down the terrace overlooking the sea, with three big dogs. She turned round at Sir Everard's approach and greeted him quite cordially.
"Papa is so much better this morning," she said, "that he is coming down to breakfast. He is subject to these attacks, and they never last long. Any exciting news overthrows him altogether."
"That letter contained exciting news, then?" Sir Everard could not help saying.
"I presume so--I did not read it. How placid the sea looks this morning, aglitter in the sunlight. And yet I have been in the middle of the Atlantic when the waves ran mountains high."
"You are quite a heroine, Miss Hunsden, and a wonderful traveler for a seventeen-year-old young lady. You see, I know your age; but at seventeen a young lady does not mind, I believe. How long have you been in England this time?"
He spoke with careless adroitness; Miss Hunsden answered, frankly enough: "Five months. You were abroad, I think, at the time."
"Yes. And now you have come for good, I hope--as if Miss Hunsden could come for anything else."
"It all depends on papa's health," replied Harriet, quietly ignoring the compliment. "I should like to stay, I confess. I am very, very fond of England."
"Of course--as you should be of your native place." He was firing nearer the target.
"England is not my native place," said Harriet, calmly. "I was born at Gibraltar."
"At Gibraltar! You surprise me. Of course your mother was not a native of Gibraltar?"