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. evan meredith noticed it too, and reproached himself bitterly more than once that he should ever so unworthily have distrusted the man who had been brought up in paris and vienna.
one day, however, harry had ridden from stoke to hereford, for the exercise alone, and edie expected him back to dinner. but at half-past seven, just as the gong in the hall was burrr-ing loudly, a telegram arrived once more for mrs. lewin, which edie tore open with trembling fingers. it was almost exactly the same mystifying message over again, only this time it was sent by harry himself, not by an unknown hotel-keeping deputy. "i have been suddenly detained here by unexpected business. do not expect me home before to-morrow. shall return as early as possible. god bless you!"
those last words, so singular in a telegram, roused and accentuated all edie's womanly terrors. "god bless you!"—what on earth could harry mean by that solemn adjuration under such strange and mysterious circumstances? there was something very serious the matter, edie felt sure; but what it could be she could not even picture to herself. her instinctive fears did not take that vulgarly[pg 64] mistrustful form that they might have taken with many a woman of lower and more suspicious nature; she knew and trusted harry far too well for that; she was too absolutely certain of his whole unshaken love and tenderness; but the very vagueness and indefiniteness of the fears she felt made them all the harder and more terrible to bear. when you don't know what it is you dread, your fancy can dress up its terrors afresh every moment in some still more painful and distressing disguise.
if harry had let her know where he was stopping, she would have ordered the carriage then and there, and driven over to hereford, not to spy him out, but to be with him in his trouble or difficulty. that, however, was clearly impossible, for harry had merely sent his telegram as from "h. lewin, hereford;" and to go about from hotel to hotel through the county town, inquiring whether her husband was staying there, would of course have been open to the most ridiculous misinterpretation. everybody would have said she was indeed keeping a tight hand upon him! so with many bitter tears brushed hastily away, edie went down in solemn and solitary state to dinner, hating herself for crying so foolishly, and burning hot with the unpleasant consciousness that the butler and footman were closely observing her face and demeanour. if she could have dined quite alone in her own boudoir very furtively it wouldn't have been quite so dreadful; but to keep up appearances with a sinking heart before those two eminently respectable and officious men-servants—it was really enough to choke one.
that night again edie lewin never slept for more than a few troubled minutes together; and whenever she awoke, it was with a start and a scream, and a vague consciousness of some impending evil.
when harry came again next day he didn't laugh it off carelessly and lightly; he didn't soothe her fears and uneasiness with ready kisses and prompt excuses; he[pg 65] didn't get angry with her and tell her not to ask him too many questions about his own business: he met her as gravely and earnestly as before, with the same tender, loving, half self-reproachful tone, and yet with the same evident desire and intention to love and cherish her more fondly than ever. edie was relieved, but she was by no means satisfied. she knew harry loved her tenderly, devotedly; but she knew also there was some sort of shadow or secret looming ominously between them.
another wife, supposed dead? he would have trusted her and told her. another love? oh, no: she could trust him; it was impossible.
and so the weeks wore away, and edie wondered all to no purpose. at last, by dint of constant wondering, she almost wore out the faculty of wonder, and half ceased to think about it any longer.
but she noticed that from day to day the old bright, brilliant irish character was slowly fading out of harry's nature, and that in its place there was growing up a settled, noble, not unbecoming earnestness. he seemed perhaps a trifle less striking and attractive than formerly, but a great deal worthier of any true woman's enduring love and admiration.
evan meredith noticed the change as well. he and harry had grown now into real friends. harry saw and recognized the genuine depth of evan's nature. evan had made amends and apologies to harry for a single passing rudeness or two. both liked the other better for the momentary rivalry and for the way he had soon forgotten it. "he's a good fellow," evan said to his father often, "and edie, with her quiet, simple english nature, has made quite another man of him—given him the ballast and the even steadiness he once wanted."
