offended that she did not seem
to consider the possibility of his having another engagement. On the
contrary, the omission might imply her knowledge of the absolute
unimportance to him of any claims compared with those she chose to
make. Thus his love fed on crumbs invisible to her from whose table
they had inadvertently fallen.

Had he been less infatuated, he might have divined in this omission one
of those unconscious revelations of character--the selfishness of a
spoiled and petted woman, who has come to assume that the convenience
of others must necessarily coincide with her own. But Leigh saw only a
hint of something confidential between them. He experienced also that
peculiar intensity of interest which attends a lover's first glimpse of
his mistress's handwriting. Even if it were commonplace, it would seem
to him like no other in the world; but here there was really something
distinctive. The letters were almost microscopically small, and
crowded into the centre of the page with the effect of a decorative
panel. He carried the epistle about with him all day, and observed the
weather with solicitous attention, but no change occurred. The
turquoise sky remained without a cloud. Fires from burning leaves sent
up sluggish pillars of smoke, that spread out equilaterally above the
trees in the windless air.

It so happened that he had the afternoon to himself. The prospect of
inaction was intolerable, so he went down into the cool vaults below
the Hall to take out his wheel for an afternoon of exploration. In
these subterranean regions, perhaps more here than elsewhere, the
imaginative appeal of the Hall was still present. As he prepared his
wheel for the trip, which he meant should be a long one, he glanced up
at the arched windows, down whose wide, slanting sills the sunlight
poured in a flood of dusty gold. The walls of these foundations were
five feet in thickness, built as if to keep out an invading host. Even
in this unfrequented place, each stone was carefully cut, and fitted
with exact nicety in its place. There was no rubble, no mere filling.
Here was a lavishness of expenditure, a conscience in building, rare in
modern times. Leigh looked down the long succession of massive
archways, dwindling into the distance, with vague thoughts of the
Castle of Chillon and the Man with the Iron Mask. When he ascended
again into the warmth and sunlight of the open air, he had a passing
sense of having