Her Italian blood betrayed itself throughout, alike in the keen pleasure
she took in the various devices of her small plot; in the entire absence
of any hampering scruples as to the disobedience and deceit which it
involved; and in the practical intelligence with which she was ready to
carry it out. She had brooded over it for days; and this afternoon a
convenient opportunity had arisen. Her mother was in her room with a
headache; Lady Tatham had had to go to Carlisle on business.
As she hastened, almost running, through the park, she was planning, by
fits and starts, what she would say to her father. But still more was the
thinking of Tatham--asking herself questions about him, with little
thrills of excitement, and little throbbings of delicious fear.
Here she was, at the gate of the park. Just ten minutes to her train! She
hurried on. A few labourers were in the road coming home tired from their
work; a few cottage doors were ajar, showing the bright fire, and the
sprawling children within. Some of the men as they passed looked with
curiosity at the slim stranger; but she was well muffled up in her new
furs--Victoria's gift--and her large felt hat; they saw little more than
the tips of her small nose and chin.
The train came in just as she reached the station. She took her ticket
for Whitebeck, and as the train jogged along, she looked out of the
window at the valley in the dim moonrise, her mind working tumultuously.
Lady Tatham had told her much; Hesketh, Lady Tatham's maid, and the old
coachman who had been teaching her to ride, had told her more.
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