"I can't tell you how much obliged I am," said Tom, twisting about as if his joints were out of order, and he was trying to set them straight.
"Your chamber is ready," said Elizabeth; "we expected you to-day."
"He doesn't need to go up now," interposed Elsie; "that checked coat is bewitching, and he is going to take me out to row. Come along, Don Quixote—come this instant!"
Elsie ran off, and he followed, obedient as a great Newfoundland dog.
Elizabeth looked after them a little sadly, and smothered a sigh of anxiety. She saw what Elsie was so heedlessly doing, and knew Tom well enough to understand how acute his sufferings would be once roused from his entrancing dream.
So things went on during the whole time of his stay, and there was no help for it. Elsie made him a perfect slave, and Tom no more thought of disputing her wildest caprice, than if he had been some untutored fawn, made captive to the spells of a Dryad.
Elsie saw plainly enough that he loved her, but she regarded that part of the affair very lightly. She was accustomed to being loved and petted—it was her right. The idea that it could be cruel or unprincipled to encourage this young fellow as she did, never entered her mind. Indeed, if the misery she was bringing upon him had been pointed out to her, she would only have laughed at it as a capital jest, a source of infinite amusement.
When Tom Fuller went back to town, Elsie was taken with a strong desire to visit dear Mrs. Harrington. Tom was a sort of cousin, now, and would make a capital escort. Besides, she was sure Grantley and Elizabeth would be much happier alone. Perhaps Mellen thought so too. At any rate, he made no objections, and Elsie went.
The husband and wife were alone. The days were so pleasant—those long, golden, June days!—they might have been so happy in the solitude of that beautiful spot, but for the chasm which lay between the souls of these married people, scarcely perceptible as yet, but widening every hour!
Elizabeth watched her husband incessantly. She tortured every evidence of affection into a forced kindness, an attempt to hide his want of love; he was trying to make all the atonement in his power, to give her everything that could make life pleasant, except the place in his heart which was her right. How her soul revolted against the thought!