Fulvia dragged herself to her own room, locked the door, and gave way to a paroxysm of weeping. She could not appear at dinner; could not show herself again that night.
[CHAPTER XXVII]
IN SUDDEN PERIL
"When the dimpled water slippeth,
Full of laughter, on its way,
And her wing the wagtail dippeth,
Running by the brink at play;
When the poplar leaves atremble
Turn their edges to the light,
And the far-up clouds resemble
Veils of gauze most clear and white."
* * * * * *
"Though the heart be not attending,
Having sorrows of her own,
Through the fields and fallows winding,
It is sad to walk alone."—JEAN INGELOW.
FULVIA'S storm was over, but grey weather remained. No further words passed about the discovered postscript. Mr. Carden-Cox was not told. Daisy never referred to the subject.
There was a slight difference in Nigel's manner from that day; not visible to lookers-on, and not intentional, but patent to Fulvia. She could not help knowing that she had sunk in his estimation: that the position she held with respect to him was altered. Not only had she yielded to the first temptation, but there had been long-persistent deceit, silence, and untruth.
Nigel knew the whole now; and Fulvia quailed before what she felt to be his view of the matter. His very silence was eloquent. He asked no explanations, because no explanations could touch the main fact. Nothing that Fulvia could say might raise her quite to her old position. He did not mean to show any change of manner towards her; yet a change existed. During the days following, he undoubtedly held a little aloof, and was more wrapped up in his own concerns, not appealing often for Fulvia's sympathy.
Fulvia was at times oppressed by a belief that he would have been willing to break off the engagement, had he not been bound by his own promise, by the family wronging of Fulvia, by his father's dying words. She felt that this was the rift which might widen into parting, this the beginning of real unhappiness to her. Hitherto she had had doubts and questionings, but in the main she had been content. Now she knew that duty was the bond which held him to her. In truth, the shock of this discovery about Fulvia had sent Nigel back with a rebound to his old exclusive trust in Ethel; for Ethel could never have acted thus.
He had been growing more used to his shackles, more able to think calmly of life with Fulvia, more ready to depend upon Fulvia for companionship and interest. Now all was altered. Fulvia knew it, and she knew that she had only herself to blame.
But she could not resolve to give him up; oven though she had come to the belief that Nigel himself was willing to part. That which would have been the more dignified step was to her impossible. Fulvia did not know how to live without Nigel. If he gave her up, pride might step in to her aid. To take the initiative herself required a different kind of resolution; and Fulvia had it not.