CHAPTER LII.
The newspapers had cried out that Hubert Lepel's two years were a miserably insufficient punishment for the crime of which he had been guilty; but to Cynthia it seemed as if those two years were an eternity. She did not talk about him to any one; she interested herself apparently in the affairs of her father's house; she made a thousand occupations for herself in the new land to which she had gone. Occasionally she had a letter—which she dearly prized—from Enid Vane, and in these letters she heard a little now and then about Hubert; but, after Enid's marriage, the letters became less frequent, and at last ceased altogether. And then she knew that the two years were over, and that Hubert must be free.
Free—or dead! She sometimes had a keen darting fear that she would never see his face again. His health had suffered very much in confinement, she had learnt from Enid's letters; and she knew that he had seemed very weak and ill during those terrible days of his trial for manslaughter. She could never think of them without a shiver. How had the two years ended for him? Was he a wreck, without hope without energy, without strength, coming out of prison only to die? Cynthia brooded over these possibilities until sleep fled from her eyes and the color from her cheeks. Her father looked at her now and then with anxious, grieving eyes; but he did not say a word. She noticed however that he greatly advocated the good qualities of a fine young Scotchman called MacPhail, who had lately settled on an estate in the neighborhood, and had shown a great inclination for Cynthia's society. Westwood was never tired of praising his good looks, his manly ways, his abilities, and his intelligence, and of calculating openly, in his daughter's hearing, the amount of wealth of which he was sure MacPhail was possessed. Cynthia grew impatient of these praises before long.
"Dear father," she said, taking his grizzled head between her hands one day and kissing it, "I like your Mr. MacPhail very well; but I shall get tired of him very soon if you are always praising him so much."
"But you do like him, Cynthy?" said her father, turning round hastily.
"Oh, yes—I think that he is a very estimable young man! I know all his good points by heart; but I can't say that I find him interesting."
"Interesting?" echoed Westwood. "What do you mean, Cynthy? Isn't he clever enough for you?"
"He is clever enough for anybody, no doubt," said Cynthia, with a little laugh. "But he never reads, he never thinks—except about his stock—and he isn't even a gentleman."
"Neither am I, Cynthia, my dear," said her father sorrowfully.
"You, you darling old man," said the girl lightly—"as if you were not one of Nature's gentlemen, and the dearest and noblest of men to boot! If he were like you, father, I should think twice as much of him;" and she put her arm round his neck and kissed him.