The Castle of the Shadows | Page 4

of the valley, where we are, the chateau windows are still bright. The place fascinates me. I am going to ride in and ask to see the house. Who will come with me?"
Virginia looked at the Marchese with a half-smiling challenge; but he did not speak, and Lady Gardiner's black eye gave out a flash. She was as poor as she was handsome and well-born, and her life as the American girl's chaperon was an easy one. The thought that Virginia Beverly might make up her mind to become the Marchesa Loria was disagreeable to Kate Gardiner, and she was glad that the Italian should displease the spoilt beauty.
"I'll go with you, dear, if you are really bent on the adventure," said the elder woman.
"Forgive me, Miss Beverly. But I--once knew these people. I could not go into their house on such an errand. They would think I had come to spy on their misfortune," protested Loria miserably.
"I knew them too," said Roger Broom, "and I'll stay down here and keep Loria company."
Lady Gardiner looked at George Trent, with whom she was having an amusing flirtation, which would certainly have been more than amusing if he had been only a quarter as rich as his half-sister.
"I'll take you and Virgie up to the door, anyhow," he responded to the look, and springing from his horse, he pushed open the tall gate of rusty iron.
Then, mounting again, the three passed between the gray stone gate-posts with an ancient carved escutcheon obliterated with moss and lichen. They rode along the grass-grown avenue which wound up the hill among the cypresses and olive trees, coming out at last, as they neared the chateau, from shadow into a pale, chastened sunshine which among the gray-green trees had somewhat the effect of moonlight.
"Have you ever heard of the Dalahaides?" Virginia demanded of her chaperon.
"If I have, I've forgotten," said Lady Gardiner. "And yet there does seem to be a dim memory of something strange hovering at the back of my brain."
They were above the grove now, on a terrace with a perspective of ruined garden, whence the battered faces of ancient statues peeped out, yellow-white from behind overgrown rose bushes and heliotrope. The chateau was before them, the windows still reflecting the sunlight; but this borrowed glitter was all the brightness it had. Once beautiful, the old battlemented house had an air of proud desolation, as if scorning pity, since it could no longer win admiration.
"You would have to spend thousands of pounds in restoring this old ruin if you should really buy it, Virginia," said Lady Gardiner.
"Well, wouldn't it be worth while to spend them?" asked the girl. "I certainly----" She stopped in the midst of her sentence, a bright flush springing to her face; for turning a corner of the avenue which brought them close to the chateau, they came suddenly upon a young woman, dressed in black, who must have heard their last words.
Instantly George Trent had his hat in his hand, and before Virginia could speak he had dismounted and plunged into explanations. He begged pardon for the intrusion, and said that, as they had seen the announcement that the chateau was for sale, they had ventured to ride up in the hope of being allowed to see the house. As he spoke, in fairly good though rather laboured French, he smiled on the girl in black with a charming smile, very like Virginia's. And Lady Gardiner looked from one to the other gravely. She was not as pleased as she had been that George Trent had come here with them, for the girl in the shabby black dress had a curiously arresting, if not beautiful face, and her surroundings, the background of the desolate castle, and the circumstances of the meeting, framed her in romance.
Lady Gardiner did not like the alacrity with which Trent had snatched off his hat and sprung from his horse, nor did she approve of the expression in his eyes, though Virginia's were just as eager.
To the surprise of all three, the girl answered in English; not the English of a French jeune fille, instructed by an imported "Miss," but the English of an Englishwoman, pure and sweet, though the voice was sad and lifeless. Her melancholy dark eyes, deep and sombre as mountain tarns, wandered from the brother's handsome face to the beautiful one of the sister.
"Pray don't speak of an intrusion," she said. "Our servant will be glad to show you through the house, and afterward, if you really think of buying the place, he will give you the address of an agent in Mentone who can tell you everything."
"Then shan't we find you again when we have seen the chateau?" asked Virginia wistfully.
The girl smiled for the first time, but there was no