"Pray, Miss Sheckleton, do you go on alone. _Entreat_ her not to refuse me a few minutes," said he.
"I will--she shall--I will, indeed, Mr. Verney," said Miss Sheckleton, very much fidgetted. "But you had better remain where we were, just now; I will return to you, and--there are some French servants at the house--will you think me very strange--unkind, I am sure, you will _not_--if I say it is only common prudence that you should not be seen at the house? You understand why I say so."
"Certainly. I shall do whatever you think best," he answered. They had arrested their walk, as Margaret had done, during this little parley. Perhaps she was uncertain whether her approach had been observed. The sun had gone down by this time, and the twilight had begun to make distant objects a little indistinct.
But there was no time for manoeuvring here, for Miss Fanshawe resumed her walk, and her cousin, Anne Sheckleton, advanced alone to meet her.
"Margaret, dear, a friend has unexpectedly arrived," began Miss Sheckleton.
"And gone, perhaps," answered Margaret Fanshawe, in one of her moods. "_Better_ gone--come, darling, let us turn, and go towards home--it is growing so dark."
And with these words, taking Miss Sheckleton's hand in hers, she turned towards the house, not choosing to see the friend whom that elderly lady had so eagerly indicated.
Strangely did Cleve Verney feel. That beautiful, cruel girl!--what could she mean?--how could she treat him so? Is there not, in strange countries, where people meet, a kindlier impulse than elsewhere?--and here--could anything be more stony and utterly cruel? The same wonderful _Cenci_--the same low, sweet voice--the same laugh, even--just for a moment heard--but now--how unspeakably cruel! He could see that Miss Sheckleton was talking earnestly to her, as they walked slowly away. It all seemed like a dream. The formal old wood--the grey château in the background, rising, with its round turrets, and conical tops, and steep roofs against the rose-tinted sky of evening; and in the foreground--not two score steps away--those figures--that girl to whom so lately he was so near being all the world--to whom, it now appeared, he was absolutely nothing--oh! that he had never heard, in Shakspeare's phrase, that mermaid voice!