Nevertheless, Lady Tyrrell loved it, and would often wander thither with her child and the nurse in the days of Charles's infancy, to enjoy an hour or two of peace at some distance from her troublous home. He thus did, indeed, remember it well; and at the very name, the clear rushing stream seemed to flow on before him, the green lawns to slope out beneath his feet.
"I remember it well," he said: "but what of it? My father is not going to pull it down, I hope."
"Oh, no," replied his companion, with a cynical sneer, which he could not restrain even when speaking of his best friend. "Oh, no! your mother said she wished he would, and so, of course, he has abandoned that idea. No; on the contrary, he has repaired and beautified it; has had all the gardens trimmed and put in order, and made it one of the sweetest spots in the country."
Charles Tyrrell was surprised; and revolving rapidly in his mind what could be his father's motive, he was inclined to believe, and the belief was not unpleasant to him, that his father contemplated a separation from Lady Tyrrell, and intended to give her the old manor-house for her dwelling. The belief, we have said, was pleasant to him; for, notwithstanding some pain and some annoyance which might still exist, he felt confident that tranquillity and peace, which were the only objects that Lady Tyrrell could now hope for in life, were only to be obtained by separating her from him who had inflicted upon her twenty years of misery.
As one is very much accustomed to do in conversing with one in whom we have little confidence, and with whom we have few sources of feeling in common, Charles Tyrrell pondered what he had heard in his own mind for some moments before he asked any explanation from his companion. When he had done so, however, and began to doubt, from what he knew of his father's nature, whether his first solution of the mystery was correct, he once more turned to his informant and demanded, "Pray what may be my father's purpose in this new arrangement, do you know?"
"Ay, that you will learn hereafter," replied Mr. Driesen, with a sententious shake of the head, expressive of all the importance of a profound but not unpleasant secret. "Ay, that you will learn hereafter; but you must hear that from your father himself."