“I am glad you come here no more. I see that you judge the honour and fulness of my heart by the infidelity and emptiness of your own. Go, sir, and remember, you discard not me––I discard you.”
Thus speaking she passed him haughtily, and he put out his hand as if to detain her, but she gathered her drapery close and so left him. Mr. Tresham heard her footsteps and softly opened the door of his library. “Come in here, Elizabeth,” he said with some tenderness.
“I have seen him.”
“And he brought you the news of his own dishonour. Let him go. He is as weak as a bent flax-stalk, and to be weak is to be wicked. Bury your disappointment in your heart, do not even tell Denas––girls talk to their mothers and mothers talk to all and sundry. Turn your face to Burrell Court now––it is a fair fortune.”
“And it may be a good thing for poor Roland.”
“It may. A respectable position and a certain income is often salvation for a man. Write to Mr. Burrell at once, and send the letter by the gardener.”
That was an easy direction to give, but Elizabeth did not find it easy to carry out. She wrote half-a-dozen letters, and none of them was satisfactory. So she finally asked her lover to call and see her at seven o’clock that evening. And it was very natural that, in the stress of such an important decision, the visit of Denas and their intention of dressing the altar should be forgotten. It was a kind of unpleasant surprise to her when Denas came and she remembered the obligation. Of course she could 28 not now refuse to fulfil it. The offering was surely to God, and no relation between herself and the rector could interfere with it. But it was a great trial. She said she had a headache, and perhaps that complaint as well as any other defined the hurt and shock she had received.
Denas wondered at Elizabeth’s want of interest. She did not superintend as usual the cutting of the flowers, so carefully nursed and saved for this occasion; and though she went to the church with Denas and really did her best to make a heart offering with her Easter wreaths, the effort was evident. Her work lacked the joyous enthusiasm which had always distinguished Elizabeth’s church duties.
The rector pointedly ignored her, and she felt keenly the curious, and in some cases the not kindly, glances of the other Easter handmaidens. In such celebrations she had always been put first; she was now last––rather, she was nowhere. It would have been hard to bear had she not known what a triumph she held in abeyance. For Mr. Burrell was the patron of St. Penfer’s church; he had given its fine chime of bells and renovated its ancient pews of black oak. The new organ had been his last Christmas gift to the parish, and out of his purse mainly had come the new school buildings. The rector might ignore Miss Tresham, but she smiled to herself when she reflected on the salaams he would yet make to Mrs. Robert Burrell.
Now, Denas was not more prudent than young girls usually are. She saw that there was trouble, and she spoke of it. She saw Elizabeth was slighted, 29 and she resented it. It was but natural under such circumstances that the church duty was made as short as possible; and it was just as natural that Elizabeth should endeavour to restore her self-respect by a confidential revelation of the great matrimonial offer she had received. And perhaps she did nothing unwomanly in leaving Denas freedom to suppose the rector’s insolent indifference the fruit of his jealousy and disappointment.