"And you didn't speak?"
"It would have been useless. I could not prove what I believed."
After a little hesitation, I added, "You are not a child, Elfie,—not so much a child as many girls of seventeen,—and I do not mind telling you that Captain Lenox did at one time wish to marry me, and I refused him. When Sir Keith once spoke of seeing him at Rouen, it made me very unhappy to think what pain I had given. So now you understand something of the matter. But, for Captain Lenox' sake, this must go no farther."
She kissed my hand, with a strangely wistful and comprehending look, even while saying simply, "It was so bad of Millie."
We did not discuss the subject farther. Elfie seemed relieved, past expression, at having told me of the burden so long resting on her mind. She would hardly leave my side all the morning, and her old affection is completely restored,—or rather the open expression of it, for I am sure she has loved me throughout. Dear little Elfie!
Now I have sent her for a walk with Miss Millington and the children. I wanted time for thought and journalising.
The past keen pain at Miss Millington's conduct has revived, but not the past passion of anger. That battle has not to be fought again. Only I do feel more than ever that all is over between Arthur Lenox and me, that where sunshine might have been, I must now be content with life under a grey-toned sky.
Gladys said to me one day, in a puzzled tone, before we came north, "Uncle Tom always says everything is sure to be for the best; but I don't see how it can,—or else people needn't mind making blunders and doing stupid things."
But—as I said to her in answer,—"We know that all things work together for good to them that love God." Enough for me to know that it is so, without fathoming the "how."
Blunders must bring their natural results; and wrong-doing must be followed by its train of bitter consequences, to oneself and others. And yet—yet—a Father's Hand can turn even those natural results and bitter consequences into pure and lasting good to those who love Him. But the good may not be always apparent in this life.