CHAPTER XVIII.
SUSPENSE.
For two or three days Florence could not resist secretly watching Mr. Aylwinne. He did not go to town, as she had expected he would, but he wrote several letters, and seemed unusually impatient for the arrival of the post. There was an inexplicable change, too, in his manner toward herself. Without actually avoiding her, he seemed to hold himself aloof, to address her with increased respect and consideration, and to lower his tones as if some great sympathy for her were striving within him.
Florence flushed to the temples as she imagined a reason for this. He had missed the newspaper, had guessed whose hand had abstracted it, and divined the feelings with which she had discovered his interest in its contents.
Ashamed to have so betrayed herself, she tried to appear careless and light-hearted, but succeeded so ill that even Aunt Margaret detected something amiss, and openly wondered what ailed her.
“I cannot understand that girl,” she said to Mr. Aylwinne confidentially. “I’m sure she has some secret she keeps from me, which is most ungenerous of her, for she knows how much I abhor mysteries and deceit.”
“Miss Heriton wants a change,” he answered abruptly. “She must go away from here, or she will have an illness. Take her to the seaside, Mrs. Blunden, and let my wards go with you. She will then have less time to be lonely and brood over her sorrows.”
“Sorrows!” Mrs. Blunden ejaculated, almost angrily. “Good gracious! Why, she has none; or, if she has, it’s very unthankful of her! She knows I shall make a provision for her future, whether she marries or remains single, and I’m neither exacting nor ill-natured. Sorrows indeed!”
“The young have many thoughts they do not always care to publish,” he replied evasively, “and Miss Heriton may have had troubles in her father’s lifetime which have robbed her of her natural cheerfulness.”
“It’s more likely that the heat of the weather has affected her,” said Aunt Margaret, unable to enter into his ideas. “I’m afraid she has her mother’s delicate constitution. I was very inconsiderate not to think of that before. Poor child!” she added, all her better feelings awakening. “I’ve no doubt she has felt languid and poorly for some time, and would not confess it for fear of alarming me. I’ll have a physician from London directly, and he shall counsel me where to take her.”
Accordingly Mrs. Blunden dispatched a telegram for one of the highest medical authorities, who arrived before the astonished Florence knew he was on his way. To please her aunt she saw him, although protesting that nothing ailed her.
The physician pronounced her nerves weak, prescribed a simple tonic, agreed with Mrs. Blunden that sea air would prove efficacious, and drove away, and in another hour Orwell Court was in commotion, for the business of packing commenced directly, Aunt Margaret declaring that no time should be lost in effecting the contemplated change.
Mr. Aylwinne, through the agency of a friend, secured them a charming cottage at Babbicombe Bay, and made every arrangement for the comfort of the party that his thoughtful consideration could devise. He had insisted that Mrs. Wilson should accompany them, although she strongly urged the impossibility of leaving him at Orwell Court alone.
“Don’t be uneasy on my account,” he said; “I shall do very well. When I begin to get hipped and miss my comforts I will send for you.”
“What’s that?” cried Mrs. Blunden, who had been engaged with some one else. “Hipped! Why should you be? Of course you will go with us.”
No, he answered decidedly—he should not leave home until he had received some letters for which he was daily looking.
“But you’ll join us?”
He hesitated. He did not know. He could not say. He would be guided by circumstances.
She was a little annoyed at her nonsuccess in prevailing with him, and bade him but a cold farewell. He either would not or did not notice this, but insisted on accompanying them to the railway station, at which, owing to Mrs. Blunden’s impatience, they arrived nearly half an hour before the train was due.
While the boys wandered about the platform, plying Aunt Margaret with questions, and Mrs. Wilson overlooked the labeling of the luggage, Florence retreated to the waiting room. Here Mr. Aylwinne found her.
“Don’t let me disturb you, Miss Heriton; I have only come to say good-by, and to ask you if there is anything I can do for you in London, where I purpose going to-morrow?”
She said no, and thanked him coldly, but still he lingered.
“I do not wish to force myself into your confidence, yet between old friends like you and me a little license may be permitted. Give me leave to speak freely, will you?”
“I do not know what you can mean,” said Florence, surprised at this preamble.
“Indeed! Then perhaps I am premature—perhaps you do not know. But there is, or, rather, was, a report in one of the daily papers that I fancied you would wish to hear confirmed or contradicted.”
Florence grew crimson with mortification. Even if he guessed the jealous regret she had been nourishing, it was indelicate of him thus to allude to it.
“I have heard all I wish to hear,” she exclaimed, and hurried toward her aunt, who now called out that the train was in sight.
“I have looked my last on Orwell Court,” thought Florence when they were actually on their journey, “perhaps on its master; nor do I think that I would wish to see him again, even if a wish would bring him to my feet. If he has engaged himself to this young girl, how cruel to waver, to keep aloof, now that she is suffering! If the report be false, why torture me with glances and sighs that reveal his affection, even while he plainly says he cannot ask me to be his? I will never see him again if it be possible to avoid it, but persuade Aunt Margaret to travel—to take me somewhere out of the beaten track, where even his name cannot reach my ear, and it may be possible in time to forget him.”