"'Gad, he looks as if he'd got a licking. Did you ever see a fellow look so queer?"
"He's been overworking his mind--business, you know--wants rest, I suspect," said Varbarriere, with a solemn nod.
"They say fellows make themselves mad that way. I wonder has he had any breakfast; did you see his trowsers all over mud?"
"I half envy your walk to Gryston," said Varbarriere, glancing up towards the fleecy clouds and blue sky, and down again to the breezy landscape. "It's worth looking at, a very pretty bit, that steep bridge and glen."
"A bad day, rather, at all events," said Drayton; "a grey day is the thing for us."
"Ah, yes, a grey day; so my nephew tells me; a pretty good angler, I believe."
Varbarriere did not hear Drayton's answer, whatever it was; he was thinking of quite other things, and more and more feverishly every minute. The situation was for him all in darkness. But there remained on his mind the impression that something worse even than a guilty discovery had occurred last night, and the spectre that had just crossed them in the hall was not a sight to dissipate those awful shadows.
Lady Alice Redcliffe makes General Lennox's Acquaintance.
Old General Lennox stopped a servant on the stairs, and learned from the staring domestic where Lady Alice Redcliffe then was.
That sad and somewhat virulent old martyr was at that moment in her accustomed haunt, Lady Mary's boudoir, and in her wonted attitude over the fire, pondering in drowsy discontent over her many miseries, when a sharp knock at the door startled her nerves and awakened her temper.
Her "come in" sounded sharply, and she beheld for the first time in her life the General, a tall lean old man, with white bristles on brow and cheek, with his toilet disordered by long and rather rapid exercise, and grim and livid with no transient agitation.
"Lady Alice Redcliffe?" inquired he, with a stiff bow, remaining still inclined, his eyes still fixed on her.
"_I_ am Lady Alice Redcliffe," returned that lady, haughtily, having quite forgotten General Lennox and all about him.
"Oh, _General_ Lennox? I was told you were here last night," said the old lady, scrutinising him with a sort of surprised frown; his dress and appearance were a little wild, and not in accordance with her ideas on military precision. "I am happy, General Lennox, to make your acquaintance. You've just arrived, I dare say?"