“Well, don’t read it in here; the Doctor will be coming to read prayers. Come out in the garden,” I said.
We went out into the beautiful grounds, and he tore open the envelope and began to read his letter as we walked. All at once I felt the arm which was linked in mine give a quick, involuntary movement, and, looking up, saw that Derrick had turned deadly pale.
“What’s up?” I said. But he read on without replying; and, when I paused and sat down on a sheltered rustic seat, he unconsciously followed my example, looking more like a sleep-walker than a man in the possession of all his faculties. At last he finished the letter, and looked up in a dazed, miserable way, letting his eyes wander over the fir-trees and the fragrant shrubs and the flowers by the path.
“Dear old fellow, what is the matter?” I asked.
A dreadful look passed over his face--the look of one stricken to the heart. But his voice was perfectly calm, and full of a ghastly self-control.
“Freda will be my sister-in-law,” he said, rather as if stating the fact to himself than answering my question.
“Impossible!” I said. “What do you mean? How could--”
As if to silence me he thrust the letter into my hand. It ran as follows:
“Dear Derrick,--For the last few days I have been down in the Flemings’ place in Derbyshire, and fortune has favoured me, for the Merrifields are here too. Now prepare yourself for a surprise. Break the news to the governor, and send me your heartiest congratulations by return of post. I am engaged to Freda Merrifield, and am the happiest fellow in the world. They are awfully fastidious sort of people, and I do not believe Sir Richard would have consented to such a match had it not been for that lucky impulse which made me rescue Dick Fleming. It has all been arranged very quickly, as these things should be, but we have seen a good deal of each other--first at Aldershot the year before last, and just lately in town, and now these four days down here--and days in a country house are equal to weeks elsewhere. I enclose a letter to my father--give it to him at a suitable moment--but, after all, he’s sure to approve of a daughter-in-law with such a dowry as Miss Merrifield is likely to have.
I gave him back the letter without a word. In dead silence we moved on, took a turning which led to a little narrow gate, and passed out of the grounds to the wild moorland country beyond.