“Yes, I came very suddenly.”
Mrs. Touchett turned away as if she were looking at the condition of the grounds, which indeed was not what it should be, while Lord Warburton hesitated a little. Isabel fancied he had been on the point of asking about her husband—rather confusedly—and then had checked himself. He continued immitigably grave, either because he thought it becoming in a place over which death had just passed, or for more personal reasons. If he was conscious of personal reasons it was very fortunate that he had the cover of the former motive; he could make the most of that. Isabel thought of all this. It was not that his face was sad, for that was another matter; but it was strangely inexpressive.
“My sisters would have been so glad to come if they had known you were still here—if they had thought you would see them,” Lord Warburton went on. “Do kindly let them see you before you leave England.”
“It would give me great pleasure; I have such a friendly recollection of them.”
“I don’t know whether you would come to Lockleigh for a day or two? You know there’s always that old promise.” And his lordship coloured a little as he made this suggestion, which gave his face a somewhat more familiar air. “Perhaps I’m not right in saying that just now; of course you’re not thinking of visiting. But I meant what would hardly be a visit. My sisters are to be at Lockleigh at Whitsuntide for five days; and if you could come then—as you say you’re not to be very long in England—I would see that there should be literally no one else.”
Isabel wondered if not even the young lady he was to marry would be there with her mamma; but she did not express this idea.
“Thank you extremely,” she contented herself with saying; “I’m afraid I hardly know about Whitsuntide.”
“But I have your promise—haven’t I?—for some other time.”
There was an interrogation in this; but Isabel let it pass. She looked at her interlocutor a moment, and the result of her observation was that—as had happened before—she felt sorry for him. “Take care you don’t miss your train,” she said. And then she added: “I wish you every happiness.”
He blushed again, more than before, and he looked at his watch. “Ah yes, 6:40; I haven’t much time, but I’ve a fly at the door. Thank you very much.” It was not apparent whether the thanks applied to her having reminded him of his train or to the more sentimental remark. “Goodbye, Mrs. Osmond; goodbye.” He shook hands with her, without meeting her eyes, and then he turned to Mrs. Touchett, who had wandered back to them. With her his parting was equally brief; and in a moment the two ladies saw him move with long steps across the lawn.
“Are you very sure he’s to be married?” Isabel asked of her aunt.
“I can’t be surer than he; but he seems sure. I congratulated him, and he accepted it.”
“Ah,” said Isabel, “I give it up!”—while her aunt returned to the house and to those avocations which the visitor had interrupted.
She gave it up, but she still thought of it—thought of it while she strolled again under the great oaks whose shadows were long upon the acres of turf. At the end of a few minutes she found herself near a rustic bench, which, a moment after she had looked at it, struck her as an object recognised. It was not simply that she had seen it before, nor even that she had sat upon it; it was that on this spot something important had happened to her—that the place had an air of association. Then she remembered that she had been sitting there, six years before, when a servant brought her from the house the letter in which Caspar Goodwood informed her that he had followed her to Europe; and that when she had read the letter she looked up to hear Lord Warburton announcing that he should like to marry her. It was indeed an historical, an interesting, bench; she stood and looked at it as if it might have something to say to her. She wouldn’t sit down on it now—she felt rather afraid of it. She only stood before it, and while she stood the past came back to her in one of those rushing waves of emotion by which persons of sensibility are visited at odd hours. The effect of this agitation was a sudden sense of being very tired, under the influence of which she overcame her scruples and sank into the rustic seat. I have said that she was restless and unable to occupy herself; and whether or no, if you had seen her there, you would have admired the justice of the former epithet, you would at least have allowed that at this moment she was the image of a victim of idleness. Her attitude had a singular absence of purpose; her hands, hanging at her sides, lost themselves in the folds of her black dress; her eyes gazed vaguely before her. There was nothing to recall her to the house; the two ladies, in their seclusion, dined early and had tea at an indefinite hour. How long she had sat in this position she could not have told you; but the twilight had grown thick when she became aware that she was not alone. She quickly straightened herself, glancing about, and then saw what had become of her solitude. She was sharing it with Caspar Goodwood, who stood looking at her, a few yards off, and whose footfall on the unresonant turf, as he came near, she had not heard. It occurred to her in the midst of this that it was just so Lord Warburton had surprised her of old.
She instantly rose, and as soon as Goodwood saw he was seen he started forward. She had had time only to rise when, with
