But now she loved the whole place; the bit of ill-kept tangled garden, with its untidy lawn and weed-covered beds, in which a few standard rose-trees strove to find a permanent home; she loved the dark and mysterious park, the rusty gate, that wood with its rich carpet which varied as each season came around.
To-night her lover was more gentle than had been his wont of late. They walked cautiously through the park, for the moon was brilliant and outlined every object with startling vividness. The trees here were sparser. Close by was the sunk fence and the tiny rustic bridge--only a plank or two--which spanned it.
Some thirty yards ahead of them they could see the dark figure of Richard Lambert walking towards the house.
"One more stroll beneath the trees, _ma mie_," he said lightly, "you'll not wish to encounter your ardent suitor again."
She loved him in this brighter mood, when he had thrown from him that mantle of jealousy and mistrust which of late had sat on him so ill.
He seemed to have set himself the task of pleasing her to-night--of making her forget, mayhap, the wooing of the several suitors who had hung round her to-day. He talked to her--always in that mysterious, muffled voice, with the quaint rolling of the r's and the foreign intonation of the vowels--he talked to her of King Louis and his tyranny over the people of France: of his own political aims to which he had already sacrificed fortune, position, home. Of his own brilliant past at the most luxurious court the world had ever known. He fired her enthusiasm, delighted her imagination, enchained her soul to his: she was literally swept off the prosy face of this earth and whirled into a realm of romance, enchanting, intoxicating, mystic--almost divine.
She forgot fleeting time, and did not even hear the church bell over at Acol village striking the hour of ten.
He had to bring her back to earth, and to guide her reluctant footsteps again towards the house. But she was too happy to part from him so easily. She forced him to escort her over the little bridge, under the pretense of terror at the lateness of the hour. She vowed that he could not be perceived from the house, since all the lights were out, and everyone indeed must be abed. Her guardian's windows, moreover, gave on the other side of the house; and he of a surety would not be moon or star gazing at this hour of the night.