CHAPTER XII. A MODEL FATHER.
Dark as the night was, the moon being so thickly obscured by clouds that she never showed her face except through a flying film of vapor, Claire seemed to detect something alarming in Bram’s attitude, something which caused her to pause as she was running up the hill towards him.
At last she stopped altogether, and they stood looking each at the figure of the other, motionless, and without speaking.
As for Bram, he felt that if he tried to utter a single word he should choke. He could not understand or analyze his own feeling; he did not well know whether his faith in her innocence and purity remained intact. All he knew, all he felt, as he looked at the little creature who seemed so pitifully small and slight as she stood alone on the hillside, wrapt tightly in a long cloak, but shivering in the night air, was that his whole heart was sore for her, that he ached for pity and distress, that he did not know what he should say, what he could do, to comfort and console her.
At last she seemed to take courage, and came a few steps nearer.
“Mr. Elshaw!”
“Yes, Miss Claire.”
She started, and no wonder. For his voice was as much changed as were the sentiments he felt for her.
An exclamation escaped his lips. She ran panting towards him.—Page 86.
She came a little nearer still, with hesitating feet, before she spoke again.
“Was that—wasn’t that my cousin, Christian Cornthwaite, who went away when he saw me?”
It was Bram’s turn to start. So that was the reason of the sudden flight of Chris! He had seen and recognized the figure of Claire as she came up the hill behind Bram.
“Yes, Miss Claire.”
Another pause. She was near enough now to peer up into his face with some chance of discerning the expression he wore. It was one of anxiety, of tenderness. She drew back a little.
“I—I heard him call—I heard a voice call out ‘Hallo!’” she explained, “and I jumped up, and looked out of the window, and I saw you, and I saw my cousin following you. And you would not answer him. But he still went on. And—and I was frightened; I thought something dreadful had happened, that you had quarrelled; so I got up and came up after you. And I saw——”
She stopped. Bram said nothing. But he turned his head away, unable to look at her. Her voice, now that she spoke under the influence of some strong emotion, played upon his heartstrings like the wind upon an Æolian harp. He made a movement as if to bid her go on with her story.
“I saw,” she added in a lower voice, “I saw you spring upon him as if you were going to knock him down. You had been quarrelling. I’m sure you had. And I was frightened. I screamed out, but you didn’t hear me, either of you; you were too full of what you were saying to each other. And it was about me; I know it was about me. Now, wasn’t it?”
Bram was astonished.
“What makes you think that, Miss Claire? Did you hear anything?”
“Ah!” cried she quickly. “That’s a confession. It was about me you were quarreling. Can’t you tell me all about it at once?”
But Bram did not dare. He moved restlessly from the one foot to the other, and suddenly said—
“You’re cold; you’re shivering. You’ll catch an awful chill if you stay up here. Just go down back to the farm, Miss Claire, like a good girl”—and unconsciously his tone assumed the caressing accents one uses to a favorite child—“and you shall hear all you want to know in the morning.”
But she stood her ground, making an impatient movement with one foot.
“No, Bram, you must tell me now. What was it all about?”
He hesitated. Even if he were able to put her off now, which seemed unlikely, she must hear the truth some day. It was only selfishness, the horror of himself giving her pain, which urged him to be reticent now. So he said to himself, doggedly preparing for his avowal. His anger against the Cornthwaites, his fear of hurting her, combined to make his tone sullen and almost fierce as he answered—
“Well, Miss Claire, I was angry wi’ him because I thought he hadn’t behaved as he ought.”
There was a pause. It seemed to Bram that she guessed, with feminine quickness, what was coming. She spoke, after another of the short pauses with which their conversation was broken up, in a very low and studiously-restrained tone—
“How? To whom, Bram?”
“To—to you, Miss Claire,” answered Bram with blunt desperation.
Another silence.
“Why, what has he done to me?” asked she at last.
“He has gone and got engaged—to be married—to somebody else; that’s what he’s done, there!”
Bram was fiercer than ever.
“Well, and what of that?”
He could not see her face, and her tone was one of careless bravado. But Bram was not deceived. He clenched his fists till the nails went deep into his flesh. It cut him in the heart to have to tell her this news, to feel what she must be suffering. He answered as quietly as he could.
“Nothing, but that I think he ought—he ought——”
“You think he ought to have told me. Oh, I guessed, I guessed what was going to happen,” replied Claire rapidly in an off-hand tone. “I should have heard it from himself to-morrow. Who—who is it?”
“A Miss Hibbs.”
“Oh, yes, of course. I might have known.”
But her voice trembled, and Bram, turning quickly, saw that the tears were running down her cheeks. She was angry at being thus caught, and she dashed them away impatiently.
“D—— him!” roared Bram, clenching his fists and his teeth.
“Hush, Bram, hush! I’m surprised. I’m ashamed of you! And, besides, what does it matter to you or to me either whom Mr. Cornthwaite marries?”
“It does matter. He ought to have married you, and taken you away out of the place, and away from the life you have to live with that old rascal——”
Bram was beside himself; he did not know what he was saying. Claire stopped him, but very gently, saying—
“Hush, Bram. He’s my father.”
“Well, I know that, but he’s a rascal all the same,” said Bram bluntly. “And Mr. Christian knows it, and he had ought to be glad to have the chance of taking you away, and making you happier. He’s behaved like a fool, too, for the girl his father’s found for him will never get on with him, never make him happy, like you would have done, Miss Claire. He is just made a rod for his own back, and it serves him jolly well right!”
Claire did not interrupt him; she was crying quietly, every tear she let fall increasing Bram’s rage, and throwing fuel on the fire of his indignation. Perhaps his anger soothed her a little, for it was in a very subdued little voice that she presently said—
“Oh, Bram, I don’t think that! I do wish him to be happy! Indeed, indeed I do. And if it wasn’t for one thing I should be very, very glad he’s going to marry somebody else—very, very glad, really!”
Bram had come a little nearer to her; he spoke earnestly, tenderly, with a voice that trembled.
“You’re fond of him?” said he, quickly, imperiously.
“Yes, I’m very fond of him. He’s my cousin, and he’s always been kind to me. But I didn’t want to marry him. Oh, I didn’t want to marry him!”
Bram was astonished, incredulous. He spoke brusquely, almost harshly.
“He thought you did. He thought you cared for him. So did I, so did everybody.”
“Yes. I know that. He’s so popular that people take it for granted one must care for him. But I didn’t—in the way you mean.”
Bram was still dubious.
“Then, why,” said he suddenly, “do you take this so much to heart?”
Claire made a valiant attempt to dry her eyes and steady her voice.
“Because,” said she in a hesitating voice, “because of—of—because of papa! He wanted me to marry him; he counted on it; and now—oh, dear, I don’t know what he will do, what he will say. Well, it can’t be helped. I must go back; I must go home. Good-bye; good-night!”
Before Bram could do more than babble out “Good-night, Miss Claire,” she had flown like the wind down the hill towards the farm.
Bram went back to his lodging in a sort of delirium. Was it possible that Claire had spoken the truth to him? That she really cared not a straw for her cousin except in a cousinly way; that all she was troubled about was her father’s displeasure at having missed such a chance of a connection with the family of the long purse.
Bram understood very little about the nature of women. But he had, of course, acquired the usual vague notions concerning the reticence, the ruses of girls in love, and he could not help feeling that in Claire’s denial there was matter for distrust. How, indeed, should she, this little friendless girl who had no other lovers, fail to respond to the affection of a man as attractive, both to men and women, as Chris Cornthwaite? And did not the behavior of Chris himself confirm this view? If Claire had not cared for him, why should he have received Bram’s frowns, his angry reproaches, with something which was almost meekness, if he had felt them to be absolutely undeserved? The more he considered this, the more impossible it seemed that Claire’s lame explanation of her tears, of her distress, could be the true one. It seemed to Bram that Theo Biron, with his shrewdness and his cunning, must have been the very person to feel most sure that Josiah Cornthwaite would never allow the marriage of Chris with Claire.
Again, why, if she had not felt a most deep interest in Chris had she taken such a bold step as to follow him up the hill that night? Surely it must have been in the hope of speaking with him, perhaps of reassuring herself from his own lips on the subject of the rumors of his approaching marriage, which must have reached her? If, too, Chris had had nothing to reproach himself with on her account, why had he fled so quickly, so abruptly, at the first sight of her?
More and more gloomy grew Bram Elshaw’s thoughts as he approached the cottage where he lodged, passed through the little bit of cramped garden, and let himself in. Entering his little sitting-room, and striking a light, he found a note addressed to himself lying on the table. The writing of the envelope was unknown to him, and he opened it with some curiosity. The letter was stamped with this heading—“The Vicarage, East Grindley.”
“Grindley! East Grindley!” thought Bram to himself. “Why, that’s where my father’s people came from!”
And he read the letter with some interest. It was this:
“Dear Sir,—I am sorry to inform you that Mr. Abraham Elshaw, who is some relation of yours, though he hardly seems himself to know in what degree, is very ill, and not expected to live many days. He has desired me to write and ask you if you will make an effort to come and see him without delay. I may tell you that I understand Mr. Elshaw has heard of the rapid manner in which you are getting on in the world; he has, in fact, often spoken of you to us with much pride, and he is anxious to see you about the disposal of the little property of which he is possessed. I need not ask you under the circumstances to come with as little delay as possible.—Yours very truly,
“Bernard G. Thorpe.
“P.S.—Mr Elshaw has been a member of my congregation for many years, and he chose me rather than one of his own relations to open communication with you. I should have preferred his choosing one of them, but he refused, saying they were unknown to you, so that I could not refuse to fulfil his wishes.”
Bram put down the letter with a rather grim smile. He had never seen this namesake of his, but he had heard a good deal about him. An eccentric old fellow, not a rich man by any means, he had saved a few hundred pounds in trade of the smallest and most pettifogging kind, on the strength of which he had given himself great airs for the last quarter of a century among the pit hands and mill hands and grinders who formed his family and acquaintance. A sturdy, stubborn, miserly old man, of whose hard-fistedness and petty money-grabbing Bram had heard many tales. But the family was proud of him, though it loved him not. Bram remembered clearly how, when he was a very small child, his father had gone out on a strike with his mates, and his poor mother, at her wits’ end for a meal, had applied to the great Abraham for a small loan, and how it had been curtly and contemptuously refused.
This was just the man, this hard-fisted, self-helping old saver of halfpence, to bestow upon the successful and prosperous young relation the money of which he would not have lent him a cent if he had been starving. Bram told himself that he must go, of course: and he resolved to do his best with the old man for those unknown relations who might be more in want of the money than he himself was. For he was shrewd enough to foresee that old Abraham’s intention was to make his prosperous young relation heir to what little he possessed. He resolved to ask next morning for a day off, and to go at once to East Grindley.
Bram got the required permission easily enough, and went on the very next day to see his reputed wealthy namesake. East Grindley was a good many miles north of Sheffield and it was late in the day before he returned.
Throughout the whole of the day he had been haunted by thoughts of Claire; and no sooner had he had his tea than he determined to go to the farm, with the excuse of asking if she had caught cold the night before.
He was in a fever of doubt, anxiety, and only half-acknowledged hope. He had wished, honestly wished, when he believed Claire to be as fond of Chris as Chris was of her, that the cousins should marry, that little Claire should be taken right out of her troubles and her difficulties, and set down in a palace of peace and content, of luxury and beauty, with the man of her heart. But if those words of Claire’s uttered to him the night before were really true, might there not be a chance that he might win her himself? That he might be the lucky man who should build her a palace, and lift her from misery into happiness?
Bram knew that Claire liked him; knew that the distance between himself and her, which had seemed immeasurable thirteen months before, had diminished, and was every day diminishing. If, indeed she did not care, had never cared for her cousin with the love Bram wanted, who had a better chance with her than himself, whom she knew so well, and trusted so completely?
Bram with all his humility, was proud in his own way, and exceedingly jealous. If Claire had loved her cousin passionately, and had been jilted by him, as Bram had believed to be the case, he did not feel that he should even have wished to take the vacant place in her heart. No doubt the wish would have come in time, but not at once. If, however, it were true that she had not cared for Chris in the only way of which Bram would have been jealous, why, then, indeed, there was hope of the most brilliant kind.
Bram, on his way to the farm, began to see in his heart such visions as love only can build and paint, love, too, that has not taken the edge off itself, frittered itself away, on the innumerable flirtations with which his daily companions at the office beguiled the dead monotony of existence.
In his new life, as in his old, it was Bram’s lot to be “chaffed” daily on his unimpressionability, on the stolid, matter-of-fact way in which he went about his daily work, “as if,” as the other clerks said, “his eyes could see nothing better in the world than paper and ink, print and figures.”
Bram on these occasions was accustomed to put on an air of extra stolidity, and to shake his head, and declare that he had no time to think of anything but his work. And all the time he wondered to himself at the ease with which they could chatter of their affection for this girl and that, and enjoy the jokes which were levelled at them, and wear their heart upon their sleeve with ill-concealed delight.
And he smiled to himself at their mistake, and went on nourishing his heart with its own chosen food in secret, with raptures that nobody guessed.
And now the thought that his dreamy hopes might grow into realities brought the color to his pale cheeks and new lustre to his steady gray eyes, as he walked soberly down the hill, and entered the farmyard in the yellow sunlight of the end of a fine day in September.
He knocked at the kitchen door, and nobody answered. He knocked more loudly, fancying that he heard voices inside the house. But again without result. So he opened the door, and peeped in. A small fire was burning in the big grate, but there was nobody in the room. With the door open, however, the voices he had faintly heard became louder, and he became aware that an altercation was going on between Claire and her father in the front part of the house.
He was on the point of retiring, therefore, with a sigh for the poor little girl, when a cry, uttered by her in a wailing tone, reached his ears, and acted upon his startled senses like flaming pitch on tow.
“Oh, papa, don’t, don’t hurt me!”
The next moment Bram had burst the opposite door open, and saw Theodore, his little, mean face wrinkled up with malice, strike Claire’s face sharply with his open hand. This was in the hall, outside the dining-room door.
No sooner was the blow given than Bram seized Theodore, lifted him into the air, and flung him down against the door of the dining-room with such force that it burst open, and Mr. Biron lay sprawling just inside the room.
Claire, her cheek still white from the blow, her eyes full of tears of shame, rushed forward, ready to champion her father.
“Go away,” she said in a strangled, breathless voice. “Go away. How dare you hurt my father? You have no right to come here. Go away.”
She tried to speak severely, harshly, but the tears were running down her face; she was heart-broken, miserable, full of such deep humiliation that she could scarcely meet his eyes. But Bram did not heed her, did not hear her perhaps. He was himself trembling with emotion, and his eyes shone with that liquid lustre, that yearning of long-repressed passion, which no words can explain away, no eyewitness can mistake.
He stretched out his hand, without a single word, and took both hers in one strong clasp. And the moment she felt his touch her voice failed, died away; she bent down her head, and burst into a fit of weeping more passionate than ever.
“Hush, my dear; hush! Don’t cry. Remember, it’s only me; it’s only Bram.”
He had bent his head too, and was leaning over her with such tender yearning, such undisguised affection, in look, manner, voice, that no girl could have doubted what feeling it was which animated him. With his disengaged hand he softly touched her hair, every nerve in his own body thrilling with a sensation he had never known before.
“Hush, hush!”
The whisper was a confession. It seemed to tell what love he had cherished for her during all these months; a love which gave him now not only the duty, but the right of comforting her, of soothing the poor little bruised heart, of calming the weary spirit.
“Hush, dear, hush!”
Whether it was a minute, whether it was an hour, that they stood like this in the little stone-flagged hall in the cool light of the dying September evening, Bram did not know. He was intoxicated, mad. It was only by strong self-control that he refrained from pressing her to his breast. He had to tell himself that he must not take advantage of her weakness, he must not extort from her while she was crushed, broken, a word, a promise, an assurance, which her stronger, her real self would shudder at or regret. She must feel, she must know, that he, Bram, was her comforter, the tender guardian who asked no price, who was ready to soothe, to champion, and to wait.
Meanwhile the strong man found in his own sensation reward enough and to spare. Here, with her heart beating very near his, was the only woman who had ever lit in him the fiery light of passion; her little hands trembled in his, the tender flesh pressing his own hard palm with a convulsive touch which set his veins tingling. The scent of her hair was an intoxicating perfume in his nostrils. Every sobbing breath she drew seemed to sound a new note of sweetest music in his heart.
At last, when he had been silent for some seconds, she suddenly drew herself back, with a face red with shame; with eyes which dared not meet his. Reluctantly he let her drag her hands away from him, and watched her wipe her wet eyes.
“Papa! Where is he?” asked she quickly.
Staggering, unsteady, hardly knowing where he went, or what he did, Bram crossed the hall, and looked into the dining-room. But the lively Theodore was not there. He turned and came face to face with Claire, who was redder than ever, the place where her father had struck her glowing with vivid crimson which put the other cheek to shame.
She moved back a step, looking about also. Then she went quickly out of the room, and recrossed the hall to the drawing-room. But her father was not there either. Back in the hall again, she met Bram, and they glanced shyly each into the face of the other.
Both felt that the fact of their having let Mr. Biron disappear without having noticed him was a mutual confession. Claire looked troubled, frightened.
“I wonder,” said she in a low voice, “where he has gone?”
But Bram did not share her anxiety. There was no fear that Mr. Biron would let either rage or despair carry him to the point of doing anything rash or dangerous to himself.
“He’ll turn up presently,” said he, with a scornful movement of the head, “never fear, Miss Claire. Have you got anything for me to do this evening? You’re running short of wood, I think.”
He walked back into the kitchen, which, being the least frequented by the fastidious Theodore, was Bram’s favorite part of the house. In a few moments Claire came softly in after him. She seemed rather constrained, rather stiff, and this made Bram very careful, very subdued. But there was a delicious peace, a new hope in his own heart; she had rested within the shelter of his arms; she had been comforted there.
“You ought not to have come this evening, Bram,” she said with studied primness. “You know, I told you that before. It only makes things worse for me, it does really.”
“Now, how can you make that out?” asked Bram bluntly.
“Why, papa will be all the angrier with me afterwards. As for—for what you saw him do, I don’t care a bit. It makes me angry for the time, and just gives me spirit enough to hold out when he wants me to do anything I won’t do, I can’t do.”
“What was it he wanted you to do?” asked Bram, grinding his teeth.
Claire hesitated. She grew crimson again, and the tears rushed once more to her eyes.
“I’d rather not tell you.” Then as she noticed the expression on Bram’s face grow darker and more menacing, she went on quickly—“Well, it was only that he wanted me to go up to Holme Park again to-night—with a note—the usual note. And that I can’t—now!”
Bram’s heart sank. Of course, she meant that it was the engagement of Chris which made this difference. But why should this be, if she did not care for him? Bram came nearer to her, leaned on the table, and looked into her face. What an endless fascination the little features had for him. When she looked down, as she did now, he never knew what would be the expression of her brown eyes when she looked up, whether they would dance with fun, or touch him by a queer, dreamy, expression, or whether there would be in them such infinite sadness that he would be forced into silent sympathy. Bram waited impatiently for her to look up.
As he came nearer and nearer, she still looking down, but conscious of his approach, a new thought came into his mind, a cruel, a bitter thought. Suddenly he stood up, still leaning over the corner of the table.
“Are you what they call a coquette, Miss Claire?” he asked with blunt earnestness.
She looked up quickly then, with a restless, defiant sparkle in her eyes.
“Perhaps I am. French people, French women, are all supposed to be, aren’t they? And my grandmother was French. Why do you ask me?”
“Because I don’t understand you,” answered Bram in a low, thick voice. “Because you tell me you don’t care for Mr. Christian, and I should like to believe you. But you tell me to keep away, and yet—and yet—whenever I come you make me think you want me to come again, though you tell me to go. But surely, surely, you wouldn’t play with me; you wouldn’t condescend to do that, would you? Now, would you?”
She looked up again, stepping back a little as she did so; and there was in her eyes such a look of beautiful confidence, of kindness, of sweet, girlish affection, that Bram’s heart leapt up. He had promptly sat down again on the table, and was bending towards her with passion in his eyes, when there stole round the half-open door the little, mean, fair face of Theodore.
Bram sprang up, and stood at once in an attitude of angry defiance.
But Theodore, quite unabashed, was in the room in half a second, holding out his pretty white hand with a smile which was meant to be frankness itself.
“Mr. Elshaw,” said he, “we must shake hands. I won’t allow you to refuse. I owe you no grudge for the way you treated me a short time ago; on the contrary, I thank you for it. I thank you——”
“Papa!” cried poor Claire.
He waved her into silence.
“I thank you,” he persisted obstinately, “for reminding me that I was treating my darling daughter too harshly, much too harshly. Claire, I am sorry. You will forgive me, won’t you?”
And he put his hand on her shoulder, and imprinted delicately on her forehead a butterfly kiss. Claire said nothing at all. She had become quite pale, and stood with a face of cold gravity, with her eyes cast down, while her father talked.
Bram felt that he should have liked to kick him. Instead of that he had to give his reluctant hand to the airy Mr. Biron, an act which he performed with the worst possible grace.
“You must stay to supper,” said Theodore. “Oh, yes; I want a talk with you. About this marriage of my young kinsman, Chris Cornthwaite. Frankly, I think the match a most ill-chosen one. He would have done much better to marry my little girl here——”
“Papa!” cried Claire angrily, impatiently.
“Only, unfortunately for him, she didn’t care enough about him.”
Claire drew a long breath. Bram looked up. Theodore, in his hurry to secure for his daughter another eligible suitor whom he saw to be well disposed for the position, was showing his hand a trifle too plainly. Bram grew restless. Claire said sharply that they could not ask Mr. Elshaw to supper, as she had nothing to offer him. She was almost rude; but Bram, whose heart ached for the poor child, gave her a glance which was forgiveness, tenderness itself. He said he could not stay, and explained that he had been out all day on an errand, which had tired him. To fill up a pause, he told the story of his eccentric kinsman.
“And he means to leave me all his money, whatever it is,” went on Bram. “He showed me the box he keeps it in, and told me in so many words that it would be mine within a few days. And all because he thinks I’ve got on. If I’d been still a hand at the works down there, and hard up for the price of a pair of boots, I shouldn’t have had a penny.”
“Ah, well, it will be none the less welcome when it comes,” said Mr. Biron brightly. “What is the amount of your fortune? Something handsome, I hope.”
“I don’t know yet, Mr. Biron. Not enough to call a fortune, I expect.”
“Well, you must come and tell us about it when it’s all settled. There’s nobody who takes more interest in you and your affairs than my daughter and I—eh, Claire?”
But Claire affected to be too busy to hear; she was engaged in making the fire burn up, and at the first opportunity she stole out of the room, unseen by her father. So that Bram, who soon after took his departure, did not see her again.
He went back to his lodging in a fever. This new turn of affairs, this anxiety of Theodore’s to make him come forward in the place of Christian, filled him with dismay. On the very first signs of this disposition in her father Claire had shrunk back into herself and had refused to give him so much as another look. But then that was only the natural resentment of a modest girl; it proved, it disproved nothing but that she refused to be thrown at any man’s head. That look she had given him just before her father’s entrance, on the other hand, had been eloquent enough to set him on fire with something more definite than dreamy hope. If it had not betrayed the very love and trust for which he was longing, it had expressed something very near akin to that feeling. Bram lived that night in alternate states of fever and frost.
He dared not, however, for fear of giving pain to Claire, go to the farm again for the next fortnight. He would linger about the farmyard gate, and sometimes he would catch sight of Claire. But on these occasions she turned her back upon him with so cold and decided a snub that it was impossible for him to advance in face of a repulse so marked. And even when Theodore lay in wait for him, and tried to induce him to go home with him, Bram had to refuse for the sake of the very girl he was longing to see.
Meanwhile the date of Christian’s marriage with Miss Hibbs was rapidly approaching. Chris maintained an easy demeanor with Bram, but that young man was stiff, reserved, and shy, and received the confidences, real or pretended, of the other without comment or sympathy. When Chris lamented that he could not make a match to please himself, Bram looked in front of him, and said nothing. When he made attempts to sound Bram on the subject of Claire, the young clerk parried his questions with perfect stolidity.
The day of the wedding was a holiday at the works, and Bram, who dared not spend the day at the farm, as he would have liked to do, and who had refused to take any part in the festivities, paid another visit to old Abraham Elshaw at East Grindley as an excuse for staying away.
He returned, however, early in the evening, and was on his way up the hill by way of the fields, when, to his unbounded amazement, he saw a side-gate in the wall of the farmhouse garden open quickly, and a man steal out, and run hurriedly down across the grass in the direction of the town.
Bram felt sure that there was something wrong, but he had hardly gone a few steps with the intention of intercepting the man, when he stopped short. Something in the man’s walk, even at this distance, struck him. In another moment, in spite of the fact that the stealthy visitor wore a travelling cap well over his eyes, Bram recognized Chris Cornthwaite.
Stupefied with dread, Bram glanced back, and saw Claire standing at the little gate, watching Chris as he ran. Shading her eyes with her hand, for the glare of the setting sun came full upon her face, she waited until he was out of sight behind a stone wall which separated the last of the fields he crossed from the road. Then she shut the gate, locked it, and went indoors.
Bram stared at the farmhouse, the windows of which were shining like jewels in the setting sun. He felt sick and cold.
What was the meaning of this secret visit of Chris Cornthwaite to Claire on his wedding day?