"Let us hope so!" commented Robinette with energy. "I should be sorry for the world if it were plural!"
Carnaby was not in the house, and Lavendar proceeded to look for him out of doors. He knew the boy was often to be found in a high part of the grounds behind the garden, where he had some special resort of his own, and he went there first. The afternoon had clouded over, and a slight shower was falling, as Mark followed the wooded path leading up hill. A rock-garden bordered it, where ferns and flowers were growing, each one of which seemed to be contributing some special and delicate fragrance to the damp, warm air. The beech trees here had low and spreading branches which framed now and again exquisite glimpses of the river far below and the wooded hills beyond it.
Lavendar had not gone far when he found Carnaby, Carnaby intensely perturbed, walking up and down by himself.
"You don't need to tell me!" said the boy, with a quick and agitated gesture of the hand. "Bates told me. Old Mrs. Prettyman's dead!" His merry, square-set face was changed and looked actually haggard, and his eyes searched Lavendar's with an expression oddly different from their usual fearless and straightforward one. They seemed afraid. "Was it my grandmother's--was it our fault?" he asked. "I, I feel like a murderer. Upon my soul, I do!"
"Don't encourage morbid ideas, my dear fellow!" said Lavendar in a matter-of-fact tone. "There's trouble enough in the world without foolish exaggeration. Mrs. Prettyman was 'grave-ripe,' as she often said to your cousin; a very feeble old woman, whose time had come. The doctor's certificate will tell you how rheumatism had affected her heart, and the neighbours would very soon set your mind at rest by describing the number of times poor old Lizzie had nearly died before."
"Think of it, though!" said Carnaby with wondering eyes. "Think of her lying dead in the cottage while I hacked and hewed at the plum tree just outside! By Jove! it makes a fellow feel queer!" He shuddered. The picture he evoked was certainly a strange one enough: a strange picture in the moonlight of a night in spring; the doomed beauty of the blossoming tree, the blind, headstrong human energy working for its destruction, and Death over all, stealthy and strong!