第36章 CHAPTER IX.(1)

Ralph Corbet found it a very difficult thing to keep down his curiosity during the next few days.It was a miserable thing to have Ellinor's unspoken secret severing them like a phantom.But he had given her his word that he would make no further inquiries from her.

Indeed,he thought he could well enough make out the outline of past events;still,there was too much left to conjecture for his mind not to be always busy on the subject.He felt inclined to probe Mr.

Wilkins in their after-dinner conversation,in which his host was frank and lax enough on many subjects.But once touch on the name of Dunster and Mr.Wilkins sank into a kind of suspicious depression of spirits;talking little,and with evident caution;and from time to time shooting furtive glances at his interlocutor's face.Ellinor was resolutely impervious to any attempts of his to bring his conversation with her back to the subject which more and more engrossed Ralph Corbet's mind.She had done her duty,as she understood it;and had received assurances which she was only too glad to believe fondly with all the tender faith of her heart.

Whatever came to pass,Ralph's love would still be hers;nor was he unwarned of what might come to pass in some dread future day.So she shut her eyes to what might be in store for her (and,after all,the chances were immeasurably in her favour);and she bent herself with her whole strength into enjoying the present.Day by day Mr.

Corbet's spirits flagged.He was,however,so generally uniform in the tenor of his talk--never very merry,and always avoiding any subject that might call out deep feeling either on his own or any one else's part,that few people were aware of his changes of mood.

Ellinor felt them,though she would not acknowledge them:it was bringing her too much face to face with the great terror of her life.

One morning he announced the fact of his brother's approaching marriage;the wedding was hastened on account of some impending event in the duke's family;and the home letter he had received that day was to bid his presence at Stokely Castle,and also to desire him to be at home by a certain time not very distant,in order to look over the requisite legal papers,and to give his assent to some of them.

He gave many reasons why this unlooked-for departure of his was absolutely necessary;but no one doubted it.He need not have alleged such reiterated excuses.The truth was,he was restrained and uncomfortable at Ford Bank ever since Ellinor's confidence.He could not rightly calculate on the most desirable course for his own interests,while his love for her was constantly being renewed by her sweet presence.Away from her,he could judge more wisely.Nor did he allege any false reasons for his departure;but the sense of relief to himself was so great at his recall home,that he was afraid of having it perceived by others;and so took the very way which,if others had been as penetrating as himself,would have betrayed him.

Mr.Wilkins,too,had begun to feel the restraint of Ralph's grave watchful presence.Ellinor was not strong enough to be married;nor was the promised money forthcoming if she had been.And to have a fellow dawdling about the house all day,sauntering into the flower-garden,peering about everywhere,and having a kind of right to put all manner of unexpected questions,was anything but agreeable.It was only Ellinor that clung to his presence--clung as though some shadow of what might happen before they met again had fallen on her spirit.As soon as he had left the house she flew up to a spare bedroom window,to watch for the last glimpse of the fly which was taking him into the town.And then she kissed the part of the pane on which his figure,waving an arm out of the carriage window,had last appeared;and went down slowly to gather together all the things he had last touched--the pen he had mended,the flower he had played with,and to lock them up in the little quaint cabinet that had held her treasures since she was a tiny child.

Miss Monro was,perhaps,very wise in proposing the translation of a difficult part of Dante for a distraction to Ellinor.The girl went meekly,if reluctantly,to the task set her by her good governess,and by-and-by her mind became braced by the exertion.

Ralph's people were not very slow in discovering that something had not gone on quite smoothly with him at Ford Bank.They knew his ways and looks with family intuition,and could easily be certain thus far.But not even his mother's skilfulest wiles,nor his favourite sister's coaxing,could obtain a word or a hint;and when his father,the squire,who had heard the opinions of the female part of the family on this head,began,in his honest blustering way,in their tete-a-tetes after dinner,to hope that Ralph was thinking better than to run his head into that confounded Hamley attorney's noose,Ralph gravely required Mr.Corbet to explain his meaning,which he professed not to understand so worded.And when the squire had,with much perplexity,put it into the plain terms of hoping that his son was thinking of breaking off his engagement to Miss Wilkins,Ralph coolly asked him if he was aware that,in that case,he should lose all title to being a man of honour,and might have an action brought against him for breach of promise?

Yet not the less for all this was the idea in his mind as a future possibility.