"Oh, Paul!"
"I bought it a year ago, but have been busy with alterations and improvements, so only came to live here within the last few weeks. I was so tired of a wandering life, Leo; and though I had only the vaguest hope that you—but somehow hope never quite deserted me."
"Then the strangeness is on our part. That we should come to where you were!"
"You had really no suspicion, Leo?" He looked at her with laughter in his eyes. "Sue kept her own counsel well;" added Paul demurely.
He and Sue had been in communication from—from precisely the date at which he took up his residence at Mere Hall. He had left for Mere Hall the day after he last saw Sue in London.
"You saw Sue in London?" She could scarcely speak for astonishment.
"Several times. The Fosters, my brother and his wife, put me up to it. Your sister is good and kind and sensible—mine is both the first, but not exactly the last, bless her for it! Her very lack of what is commonly admired, proved my salvation. She first extracted the truth from me, and then went straight for Sue, and hammered it into her that there was no earthly reason why we two should not be made happy now. She could not endure to see my long face, she said;—and though I gathered that Sue was somewhat startled by her abruptness—for Charlotte is not famed for tact—eventually the two understood each other, and I was brought on to the stage."
"Was that," cried Leo, with a sudden flash of memory, "was that one day, oh, it must have been that day!—Sue was so odd and unlike herself. I wondered what could have excited her in a private view of rather stupid water-colours, and why she began all at once to say she longed for the country? Were you in the water-colour gallery?"
He was, and all was explained.
"Coo-coo," came the plaintive note of a dove from the leafy shades close by—but it cooed unheard. The streamlet splashed on unheeded. The sun went slowly down behind the mountain-tops unseen. And still they sat on....
CHAPTER XIX.
EPILOGUE
About a year after Paul and Leonore were married, they received a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Valentine Purcell, travelling in all the state that money could buy and ingenuity devise.
Val was glorious: even prouder of his new wife's cleverness than he had been of her predecessor's beauty. Marietta was superb: there never was such a woman; managed everything—ran the entire show. He was allowed a tailor's bill though,—and he looked down at a new suit with all his old complacency.
He was perfectly easy, happy, and friendly. He had not an awkward remembrance, nor an uncomfortable sensation.
It was splendid to be among his dear old friends again, and to find them all so fit; Mere Hall was a delightful place, and he was awfully glad that it was Sue's home too.
He did wish that he could get them all out to California. Sue ought really to see California. If she would hop across the pond, he would meet her himself in New York, and take her across the Rockies in his own car. He and his wife always travelled in their own car.
As for Paul and Leo, of course they were coming, but Sue—he had a sly whisper for Leo's ear anent Sue. "What about Salt Lake City? That would be Sue's chance: those Mormons are awful jossers for wives. I never let Marietta within a hundred miles of 'em. You send old Sue out to me, Leo."
Paul he speedily pronounced the best fellow in the world—taking him as an entirely new personage. Paul's alterations in the house were a triumph of architecture, and the steeple he was adding to the church a masterpiece.
"Quite right to look after the church," said Val, seriously. "I always take care that Marietta goes to church, and she's come rather to like it. Now that she has been here, she says she's going to be more religious, and I daresay I shall too. It's so awfully jolly to live as you and Paul do, you know."
Another day he was alone with his old playmate, and raised his head after a reverie.
"So you and Paul got each other after all, Leo?"
Leo, who was dressing a bowl with roses, dropped one, and looked attentively at the speaker.
"Got each other after all, Val?"
"Oh, don't you come the innocent over me, Mrs. Stubbs—Mrs. Foster, I mean. I know you and your tricks. You are just the same little wag you always were—but I know you. And I know about you and Paul too."
"Know about us? What about us?"—quickly.
"Tell you if you like. I was in the woods that day. I was going home from shooting and heard a row,—so then I crept along to see what was up, and hid behind some big hollies; and there you were, you and Paul, holding each other's hands, and shouting into each other's faces!"
"Did you—did you hear what we said, Val?"
"Lord, no—though I tried all I could. And what the dickens made you speak so loud—you, especially—I could not imagine. If I hadn't had to keep dark behind the beastly bushes, I could have heard every word. Anyhow I heard enough—and saw enough—to know what you were up to."
He paused.
"And I was mad with you both, Leo. Because, you see, it wasn't Queensberry—however it's all right now."
"And it was you who told Maud?"
"Why, of course," said Val, simply.