She read
it hastily: "From Proprietor, Norton's Hotel, Jermyn Street, London, to
Mrs. Lewin, Peveril Court, Stoke Peveril, Herefordshire. Mr. Lewin
unfortunately detained in town by urgent business. He will not be able
to return before to-morrow." Edie laid down the telegram with a sinking heart. In itself there was
nothing so very strange in Harry's being detained by business; men are
always being detained by business; she knew it was a way they had, a
masculine peculiarity. But why had not Harry telegraphed himself? Why
had he left the proprietor of Norton's Hotel to telegraph for him? Why
was he at Norton's Hotel at all? And if he really was there, why could
he not have written the telegram himself? It was very mysterious,
perplexing, and inexplicable. Tears came into Edie's eyes, and she sat
long looking at the flimsy pink Government paper, as if the mere
inspection of the hateful message would help her to make out the meaning
of the enclosed mystery. Soon the question began to occur to her, what should she do for the
night's arrangements? Peveril Court was so big and lonely; she hated the
idea of stopping there alone. Should she have out the carriage and drive
round to spend the night as of old at her mother's? But no; it was late,
and the servants would think it so very odd of her. People would talk
about it; they would say Harry had stopped away from her unexpectedly,
and that she had gone back in a pique to her own home. Young wives, she
knew, are always doing those foolish things, and always regretting them
afterwards when they find the whole county magnifying the molehill into
a veritable mountain. Much as she dreaded it, she must spend the night
alone in that big bedroom--the haunted bedroom where the last of the
Peverils died. Poor little Edie! with her simple, small, village ways,
she hated that great rambling house, and all its halls and staircases
and corridors! But there was no help for it. She went tearfully up to
her own room, and flung herself without undressing on the great bed with
the heavy crimson tapestry hangings. There she lay all night, tossing and turning, crying and wondering,
dozing off at times and starting up again fitfully, but never putting
out the candles on the dressing-table, which had burned away deep in the
sockets by the time morning began to peep through the grey Venetians of
the east window. III. Next morning Evan Meredith heard accidentally that Harry Lewin had
stopped for the night in London, and had telegraphed unexpectedly to
Edie that he had been detained in town on business. Evan shook his head with an ominous look. "Poor child," he said to
himself pityingly; "she _would_ marry a man who had been brought up in
Paris and Vienna!" And when Harry came back that evening by the late train, Evan Meredith
was loitering casually by the big iron gates of Peveril Court to see
whether Edie's husband was really returning. There was a very grave and serious look on Harry's face that surprised
and somewhat disconcerted Evan. He somehow felt that Harry's expression
was not that of a careless, dissipated fellow, and he said to himself,
this time a little less confidently: "Perhaps after all I may have been
misjudging him." Edie was standing to welcome her husband on the big stone steps of the
old manor house. He stepped from the dogcart, not lightly with a spring
as was his usual wont, but slowly and almost remorsefully, like a man
who has some evil tidings to break to those he loves dearest. But he
kissed Edie as tenderly as ever--even more tenderly, she somehow
imagined; and he looked at her with such a genuine look of love that
Edie thought it was well worth while for him to go away for the sake of
such a delightful meeting. "Well, darling," she asked, as she went with him into the great
dining-room, "why didn't you come back to the little wifie, as you
promised yesterday?" Harry looked her full in the face, not evasively or furtively, but with
a frank, open glance, and answered in a very quiet voice, "I was
detained on business, Edie." "What business?" Edie asked, a little piqued at the indefiniteness of
the answer. "Business that absolutely prevented me from returning," Harry replied,
with a short air of perfect determination. Edie tried in vain to get any further detail out of him. To all her
questions Harry only answered with the one set and unaltered formula, "I
was detained on important business." But when she had asked him for the fiftieth time in the drawing-room
that evening, he said at last, not at all angrily, but very seriously,
"It was business, Edie, closely connected with your own happiness. If I
had returned last night, you would have been sorry for it, sooner or
later. I stayed away for your own sake, darling. Please ask me no more
about it." Edie couldn't imagine what he meant; but he spoke so seriously, and
smoothed her hand with such a tender, loving gesture, that she kissed
him fervently, and brushed away the tears from her swimming eyes without
letting him see them. As for Harry, he sat long looking at the embers in
the smouldering fire, and holding his pretty little wife's hand tight in
his without uttering a single syllable. At last, just as they were
rising to go upstairs, he laid his hand upon the mantelpiece as if to
steady himself, and said very earnestly, "Edie, with God's help, I hope
it shall never occur again." "What, Harry darling? What do you mean? What will never occur again?" He paused a moment. "That I should be compelled to stop a night away
from you unexpectedly," he answered then very slowly. And when he had said it he took up the candle from the little side table
and walked away, with two tears standing in his eyes, to his own
dressing-room. From that day forth Edie Lewin noticed two things. First, that her
husband seemed to love her even more tenderly and deeply than ever. And
second, that his strange gravity and self-restraint seemed to increase
daily upon him. And Evan Meredith, watching closely his cousin and her husband, thought
to himself with a glow of satisfaction--for he was too generous and too
true in his heart to wish ill to his rival--"After all, he loves her
truly; he is really in love with her. Edie will be rich now, and will
have a good husband. What could I ever have given her compared to what
Harry Lewin can give her? It is better so. I must not regret it." IV. For five or six months more, life passed as usual at Peveril Court, or
at Harry Lewin's new town house in Curzon Street, Mayfair. The season
came and went pleasantly enough, with its round of dances, theatres, and
dinners; and in the autumn Edie Lewin found herself once more back for
the shooting in dear old Herefordshire. Harry was always by her side,
the most attentive and inseparable of husbands; he seemed somehow to
cling to her passionately, as if he could not bear to be out of her
sight for a single moment. Edie noticed it, and felt grateful for his
love.