“Well, my dear, is it clearing up? Shall we take a drive before luncheon?”
“If you like, mama.”
She turned to her mother as she answered.
The light of the clearing sky, at once soft and penetrating, fell full on her.
Mrs. Eyrecourt, looking at her as usual, suddenly became serious: she studied her daughter’s face with an eager and attentive scrutiny.
“Do you see any extraordinary change in me?” Stella asked, with a faint smile.
Instead of answering, Mrs. Eyrecourt put her arm round Stella with a loving gentleness, entirely at variance with any ordinary expression of her character.
The worldly mother’s eyes rested with a lingering tenderness on the daughter’s face.
“Stella!” she said softly—and stopped, at a loss for words for the first time in her life.
After a while, she began again.
“Yes; I see a change in you,” she whispered—“an interesting change which tells me something.
Can you guess what it is?”
Stella’s color rose brightly, and faded again. She laid her head in silence on her mother’s bosom.
Worldly, frivolous, self-interested, Mrs. Eyrecourt’s nature was the nature of a woman—and the one great trial and triumph of a woman’s life, appealing to her as a trial and a triumph soon to come to her own child, touched fibers under the hardened surface of her heart which were still unprofaned.
“My poor darling,” she said, “have you told the good news to your husband?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He doesn’t care, now, for anything that I can tell him.”
“Nonsense, Stella!
You may win him back to you by a word—and do you hesitate to say the word?
I shall tell him!”
Stella suddenly drew herself away from her mother’s caressing arm.
“If you do,” she cried, “no words can say how inconsiderate and how cruel I shall think you.
Promise—on your word of honor—promise you will leave it to me!”
“Will you tell him, yourself—if I leave it to you?”
“Yes—at my own time.
Promise!”
“Hush, hush! don’t excite yourself, my love; I promise.
Give me a kiss.
I declare I am agitated myself!” she exclaimed, falling back into her customary manner.
“Such a shock to my vanity, Stella—the prospect of becoming a grandmother!
I really must ring for Matilda, and take a few drops of red lavender.
Be advised by me, my poor dear, and we will turn the priest out of the house yet.
When Romayne comes back from his ridiculous Retreat—after his fasting and flagellation, and Heaven knows what besides—then bring him to his senses; then is the time to tell him.
Will you think of it?”
“Yes; I will think of it.”
“And one word more, before Matilda comes in.
Remember the vast importance of having a male heir to Vange Abbey.
On these occasions you may practice with perfect impunity on the ignorance of the men.
Tell him you’re sure it’s going to be a boy!”
CHAPTER II. THE SEED IS SOWN.
SITUATED in a distant quarter of the vast western suburb of London, the house called The Retreat stood in the midst of a well-kept garden, protected on all sides by a high brick wall.
Excepting the grand gilt cross on the roof of the chapel, nothing revealed externally the devotional purpose to which the Roman Catholic priesthood (assisted by the liberality of “the Faithful”) had dedicated the building.
But the convert privileged to pass the gates left Protestant England outside, and found himself, as it were, in a new country.
Inside The Retreat, the paternal care of the Church took possession of him; surrounded him with monastic simplicity in his neat little bedroom; and dazzled him with devotional splendor when his religious duties called him into the chapel.
The perfect taste—so seldom found in the modern arrangement and decoration of convents and churches in southern countries—showed itself here, pressed into the service of religion, in every part of the house.
The severest discipline had no sordid and hideous side to it in The Retreat.
The inmates fasted on spotless tablecloths, and handled knives and forks (the humble servants of half-filled stomachs) without a speck on their decent brightness.
Penitents who kissed the steps of the altar (to use the expressive Oriental phrase), “eat no dirt.”
Friends, liberal friends, permitted to visit the inmates on stated days, saw copies of famous Holy Families in the reception-room which were really works of Art; and trod on a carpet of studiously modest pretensions, exhibiting pious emblems beyond reproach in color and design.