Though speaking _sotto voce_, and not supposing himself overheard, he is, nevertheless--by a woman, who, coming forth from the house, has stepped silently behind him, there pausing.
Odd-looking apparition she, seen upon the Wyeside; altogether unlike a native of it, but altogether like one born upon the banks of the Seine, and brought up to tread the Boulevards of Paris--like the latter from the crown of her head to the soles of her high-heeled boots, on whose toes she stands poised and balancing. In front of that ancient English manor-house, she seems grotesquely out of place--as much as a costermonger, driving his moke-drawn cart among the Pyramids, or smoking a "Pickwick" by the side of the Sphinx.
For all there is nothing mysterious, or even strange in her presence there. She is Lewin Murdock's wife. If he has left his fortune in foreign lands, with the better part of his life and health, he has thence brought her, his better-half.
Physically a fine-looking woman, despite some ravages due to time, and possibly more to crime. Tall and dark as the daughters of the Latinic race, with features beautiful in the past--even still attractive to those not repelled by the beguiling glances of sin.
Such were hers, first given to him in a _café chantant_ of the Tuileries--oft afterwards repeated in _jardin_, _bois_, and _bals_ of the demi-monde, till at length she gave him her hand in the Eglise La Madeleine.
Busied with his brandy, and again gazing at Llangorren, he has not yet seen her; nor is he aware of her proximity till hearing an exclamation:--
He starts at the interrogatory, turning round.
"You think too loud, Monsieur--that is if you wish to keep your thoughts to yourself. And you might--seeing that it's a love secret! May I ask who is this _she_ you're soliloquising about? Some of your old English _bonnes amies_, I suppose?"
This, with an air of affected jealousy she is far from feeling. In the heart of the _ex-cocotte_ there is no place for such a sentiment.
"Got nothing to do with _bonnes amies_, young or old," he gruffly replies. "Just now I've got something else to think of than sweethearts. Enough occupation for my thoughts in the how I'm to support a wife--yourself, madame."
