She would speak to kind Miss Forcus. Miss
Forcus would tell her what to do.
Simultaneously with the formation of this resolve she arrived at the
neatly trimmed hedge of Laburnum Villa. For the moment she had forgotten
that the place held any interest for her beyond that of the other little
houses in their gay gardens she had passed. She glanced at the bright
green of the trellis-work front, at the minute weeping willow in a corner
of the grass-plot, at the roseplants destined to cover arches and to grow
into a bower, by and by. By the front door a clematis had been planted,
and the Honourable Charles was stooping over the plant, and striving to
direct, in accordance with his own idea of how it should grow, the
clinging of the tendrils.
Her light step was perhaps the one step in the world whose music could
have withdrawn his attention from that absorbing occupation. He rose to
his feet, turning sharply round; and as she wished him good-evening he
went swiftly to the gate and swung it open."
"Come in," he said. "I have been waiting for this." He had at the moment
such a commanding air, that Deleah had no thought but to obey him.
"I wish to show you my little place," he explained.
Deleah was late, as it was, and had yet some mile and a half to walk, but
concluding from the dimensions of the place that no very long detention
was threatened, did not demur.
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