Only
thrice in those twenty years had he slept in a room of the Cloistered
House. One of those occasions was the day on which Luke Claridge put up
the grey stone in the graveyard, three years after his daughter's death.
On the night of that day these two men met face to face in the garden of
the Cloistered House. It was said by a passer-by, who had involuntarily
overheard, that Luke Claridge had used harsh and profane words to Lord
Eglington, though he had no inkling of the subject of the bitter talk. He
supposed, however, that Luke had gone to reprove the other for a wasteful
and wandering existence; for desertion of that Quaker religion to which
his grandfather, the third Earl of Eglington, had turned in the second
half of his life, never visiting his estates in Ireland, and residing
here among his new friends to his last day. This listener--John Fairley
was his name--kept his own counsel. On two other occasions had Lord
Eglington visited the Cloistered House in the years that passed, and
remained many months. Once he brought his wife and child.
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