CHAPTER XXXVII.

AT DELORAINE PARK.

Softly She is lying With her lips apart, Softly, While you’re sighing With a smitten heart. Gently She is sleeping— She has breathed her last; Gently, While you’re weeping, She to heaven has passed. C. G. EASTMAN.

Mr. and Mrs. Adrian Fleming reached London late in the afternoon, and had only time to take a luncheon before getting their seats on the Southwestern train. They traveled all night, and about seven o’clock the next morning they reached Deloraine Station.

They found the Deloraine carriage waiting for them.

“Ah, Beckwith! You got the telegram, then?” said Mr. Fleming, as the coachman touched his hat.

“Yes, sir,” replied the man, repeating his gesture of respect.

The young footman, Harry Hart, opened the carriage door to admit his new mistress and master; then handed in the portmanteaus, closed the door again and sprang up behind.

The carriage drove off, taking its way towards the village and through the main street.

They drew up at the Deloraine Arms, where the swinging sign was swathed in back.

Here Adrian ordered coffee and muffins, which were brought to the carriage, where he and Net partook of them.

Then they continued their way through the village, where every house was closed and hung in mourning.

The carriage passed through the gates and wound its way along the road leading through the park up to the hall.

The footman sprang down and rang the bell, and the door was opened to receive the new mistress at the moment her husband handed her from the carriage.

The footman, going before, led the way up stairs and threw open the door of the drawing-room.

But Net did not go there. She passed on to the rooms that had been appropriated to her private use, while she had been staying at the hall, and she shut herself in alone and rang for the housekeeper.

Nelly, the maid, answered the bell.

“I want Mrs. Koffy,” said Net, who was too much agitated to remember her usually considerate and courteous manner to all—even the humblest with whom she might be brought into contact.

The girl went out and in a few moments Mrs. Koffy came in.

At the sight of her new mistress she threw her black silk apron over her head and began to sob and cry.

“Sit down and try to compose yourself. I wish you to tell me some particulars of your young lady’s last hours.”

Amidst tears and lamentations the housekeeper complied and gave as coherent an account of the sad event as it was possible for her to do.

The good domestic then finished her recital with the interrogation:

“That is all, ma’am. Would you like to see her?”

“Yes,” said Net, with an irrepressible sigh.

The housekeeper arose to lead the way.

Net also arose and took off her bonnet and mantle to follow the woman, who conducted her to the boudoir where poor Antoinette Deloraine had passed the last days of her life, and where everything was now in the most perfect order. Thence they passed into the bedchamber, where, on the rose-colored silk and lace draped bed and under the rosy silk and lace tent like canopy, lay, like the fair, waxen image of a beautiful maiden, the form of Antoinette Deloraine.

Nurse Knollis was moving softly about the room, replacing faded flowers with fresh ones. She courtesied to Mrs. Fleming, and then, having completed her task, she withdrew.

“You may also go, Mrs. Koffy. I wish to remain here alone, if you please,” said Net, taking her seat beside the bed.

“Now don’t you go to be taking on, my dear young lady; you will just be making yourself ill for nothing,” expostulated the housekeeper, who mistook the motives of her mistress.

“I! Oh, no, I should not do so, _here_ of all places,” quietly replied Net. The housekeeper withdrew and left Net alone in the sphere of ineffable peace which surrounds those who have recently fallen asleep in the Lord.

Net felt this and soon lost herself in a benign repose that lasted she knew not how long, but until she was aroused by a rapping at the door, followed by the entrance of the housekeeper, who said:

“If you please, ma’am, the master is asking for you, and luncheon is on the table.”

Net arose, pressed her lips upon the ivory brow of the beautiful sleeper, covered the face again with its lace handkerchief, and withdrew from the chamber.

“The luncheon is spread in the large breakfast-room below, madam. You will find Hart in the hall, who will show you the way,” said Mrs. Koffy, as she left her mistress at the head of the main stairway, and turned to go down by the back steps.

Net went down and was duly shown by young Hart to the breakfast parlor, where she found the lunch table laid and several gentlemen besides her husband assembled.

They were all strangers to her; and Mr. Fleming proceeded to introduce them.

“My wife, Mrs. Adrian Fleming, gentlemen!—My dear, the Rev. Mr. Deering, Rector of St. Andrew’s church, Deloraine; Dr. Bede; Mr. Philip Frodisham.”

The gentlemen bowed, the lady bowed, and they all sat down to the table.

The luncheon passed off agreeably, but very gravely.

After it was over, Mr. Frodisham requested an interview with Mrs. Fleming, who led him into a little parlor on the same floor.

Mr. Frodisham was a venerable, hale old gentleman of not less than seventy years, with a robust and upright form, a healthy, rosy face and a fine, stately gray head. He was the senior partner of the firm of Frodisham Brothers, who had had charge of the Deloraine estate for three generations of that short-lived family.

“My dear Mrs. Fleming, first of all I wish to express to you my warm admiration of the magnanimity with which you have acted towards your deceased cousin. You might have enriched yourself by dispossessing her, and the legal and moral right to do so was undoubtedly yours, and yet you forebore to do it! You permitted your unfortunate cousin to live and to die in the happy delusion that she was the legitimate daughter of the late Alfred Deloraine, and the legal heiress of Deloraine Park—”

“As she ought in justice to have been, Mr. Frodisham; I may have had the legal right to dispossess Antoinette, but assuredly I had not the moral right to do so. I _could not_ have done so, indeed! And I am very glad and thankful that my dear Antoinette never suspected the misfortune that might have overwhelmed her reason had she learned it,” said Net.

“You are a very rare and magnanimous young lady. I must tell you _that_ before you go any farther. Now we must discuss business,” said the attorney.

And he asked Net’s instruction upon certain points to be attended to immediately; among them the details for the management of Antoinette Deloraine’s funeral.

Net referred him to Mr. Fleming and to the rector. And so the interview ended.

The funeral was arranged to take place on that day week.

Letters were written to the few relatives of the Deloraine family that were left alive, and also to Sir Adrian and Lady Fleming, inviting them to attend the obsequies.

Not one from a distance responded in person, except the baronet, who arrived at Deloraine Park on the morning of the day set for the funeral.

Adrian Fleming had just gone out for a stroll through the park. The baronet was welcomed by his daughter-in law, in the little reception-room on the first floor.

“Well, Saucebox!” was Sir Adrian’s greeting to Net. “How are those little bones of contention, the children? I dare say you have come to your senses and got rid of them before this!”

“The children are well, Sir Adrian, and are still under my guardianship,” gently replied Net.

“You do not mean to say that you have got them here, in this house!” exclaimed the old gentleman.

“Not just at present. I left them at Castle Montjoie, in the care of the countess, while I came to attend my cousin,” said Net, with a slight smile.

“At—Castle Montjoie!—with the young countess!—those children!!!” exclaimed the baronet, staring.

“Yes, Sir Adrian. Every one has not the same aversion to children that you and Lady Fleming profess to have,” answered Net.

“Well! They will not probably remain for the rest of their natural lives at Castle Montjoie. What do you intend to do with them afterwards?”

“I wish to bring them here; but—”

“Your husband will never consent to that absurd measure—never, if I know him!” interrupted the baronet.

Net made no reply. Her eyes sank beneath the hard, steady stare of the old man.

“What will you do in that case?” he demanded, without withdrawing his gaze.

A look of care and trouble crossed the gentle face of little mammam for a moment, and then passed off, as she said:

“I will ‘take no thought of the morrow,’ but ‘let the morrow take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’ Sir Adrian, but for that text I should have passed many a sleepless night in the course of my troubled life.”

“There—we won’t argue—I am going to get some of this railroad dust out of my eyes! Where is your husband?” suddenly demanded the baronet.

“He has walked out. I expect him in every minute,” replied Net.

“Tired of the house, I suppose. Never could bear confinement or solemnity. Both together too much for him. Well, I am going to my room. I suppose you have one ready for me?”

“Oh, yes, Sir Adrian, and Hart will show you to it.”

“Well, I am going now to see if I can turn myself back again from a blackamoor to a white man, as I used to be. And then I shall want something to eat. When will lunch be ready?”

“As soon as you shall be ready for it, Sir Adrian.”

With that answer from Net the baronet strode out of the room and was taken possession of by Hart, who conducted him to his chamber, where he found his valet already installed and employed in opening his dressing-case and portmanteau and laying out their contents.

Net in the meantime hastened to the housekeeper and directed her to have something hot and appetizing for her exacting father-in-law.

Coming up from the consultation with Mrs. Koffy, Net met Adrian returning from his walk.

“Your father has just arrived,” she said.

“Ah! Where is the old man?” he demanded, with pleasure in his eyes, because, with all his failings he loved his father.

“He has gone up to his room. The blue room next beyond yours,” answered Net.

Adrian bounded upstairs, taking three steps at a jump and was soon out of sight.

Half an hour later the baronet, his son and daughter-in-law sat down to a dainty repast in the little dining-room on the first floor.

Soon after this the funeral guests began to assemble.

All the county families in the vicinity of Deloraine Park came to pay their last tribute of respect to the youngest, fairest and last of the Deloraines.

The funeral took place in the afternoon. The remains were conveyed to St Andrew’s Church, at the head of the hall lane and at the upper end of the village. This church had been founded five centuries before by one of the earlier ancestors of the house of Deloraine, and the family vault was under the chancel.

The procession of carriages that followed the hearse extended nearly from the lodge gates to the church door, where the coffin was met by the rector.

The service consisted of the solemn and beautiful ritual of the Church of England.

At its close the mortal remains of Antoinette Deloraine were deposited in the crypt below the altar.

All the carriages then dispersed to their various destinations. Only those of the limited household returned to Deloraine Hall, where dinner awaited them.

The departed girl had been a minor, incapable of making a will, so that there was no after ceremony of opening and reading such a document to be performed.

Net Fleming was the heiress-at-law and came into immediate possession.

After dinner there remained in the house only Sir Adrian, who was to spend the night at the hall, and Mr. and Mrs. Fleming, who were to make it their permanent home.

It happened that some time after dinner Net went up to her dressing-room to bathe her head, which was aching and burning from long-continued fatigue and excitement. Now her dressing-room joined that of the old baronet, back to back, so that the same branch of pipes supplied both wash-stands with water. Only a thin partition separated them.

As Net stood bathing her head over the wash-basin she heard voices in the next room. At first she paid no attention, and so did not recognize them. They—the voices—might have belonged to the housemaid and valet for aught she knew or cared.

But presently she recognized the voices as those of her husband and her father-in-law; but still she did not listen, and therefore did not hear the purport of their conversation, until suddenly some words uttered by her husband struck her ear—ay! and struck her _heart_, nearly paralyzing her where she stood. She could not move; she could not speak; she could scarcely breathe, while she was compelled to listen.

And what were these words that smote all color from her cheeks, all light from her eyes, nearly all life from her frame?

[Illustration: [Fleuron]]