She despised her husband for his inanities
and vulgar, unintellectual occupations; and he, she felt, would
despise her still worse, because she had not been strong enough to do
right for right's sake, and to sacrifice her brother to the dictates
of her conscience.
Buried in her thoughts, Marguerite had found this hour in the
breezy summer night all too brief; and it was with a feeling of keen
disappointment, that she suddenly realised that the bays had turned
into the massive gates of her beautiful English home.
Sir Percy Blakeney's house on the river has become a historic
one: palatial in its dimensions, it stands in the midst of exquisitely
laid-out gardens, with a picturesque terrace and frontage to the
river. Built in Tudor days, the old red brick of the walls looks
eminently picturesque in the midst of a bower of green, the beautiful
lawn, with its old sun-dial, adding the true note of harmony to its
foregrounds, and now, on this warm early autumn night, the leaves
slightly turned to russets and gold, the old garden looked singularly
poetic and peaceful in the moonlight.
With unerring precision, Sir Percy had brought the four bays
to a standstill immediately in front of the fine Elizabethan entrance
hall; in spite of the late hour, an army of grooms seemed to have
emerged from the very ground, as the coach had thundered up, and were
standing respectfully round.
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