'Unhappy!' said he, as though he thought that all the unhappiness in the world was at the present moment reserved for his own shoulders.
'Yes, we are not so happy now as we were when you were last with us. Poor Katie is very ill.'
'But you don't think there is any danger, Mrs. Woodward?'
There are many tones in which such a question may be asked—and is asked from day to day—all differing widely from each other, and giving evidence of various shades of feeling in the speaker. Charley involuntarily put his whole heart into it. Mrs. Woodward could not but love him for feeling for her child, though she would have given so much that the two might have been indifferent to each other.
'I do not know,' she said. 'We hope not. But I should not be sent with her to Torquay if she were not very ill. She is very ill, and it is absolutely essential that nothing should be allowed to excite her painfully. I tell you this, Charley, to excuse our apparent unkindness in not having you here sooner.'
Charley walked by her in silence. Why should his coming excite her more than Norman's? What could there be painful to her in seeing him? Did the fact of his having been arrested attach to his visit any peculiar probability of excitement?
'Do not suppose that we have not thought of you,' continued Mrs. Woodward.' We have all done so daily. Nay, I have done so myself all but hourly. Ah, Charley, you will never know how truly I love you.'
Charley's heart was as soft as it was inflammable. He was utterly unable to resist such tenderness as Mrs. Woodward showed to him. He had made a little resolution to be stiff and stern, to ask for no favour and to receive none, not to palliate his own conduct, or to allow Mrs. Woodward to condemn it. He had felt that as the Woodwards had given him up, they had no longer any right to criticize him. To them at least, one and all, to Mrs. Woodward and her daughters, his conduct had been sans reproche. They had no cause to upbraid him on their own account; and they had now abandoned the right to do so on his own. With such assumed sternness he began his walk; but now it had all melted before the warmth of one tender word from a woman's mouth.
'I know I am not worth thinking about,' said he.
'Do not say so; pray do not say so. Do not think that we say so to ourselves. I grieve for your faults. Charley; I know they are grievous and wicked; but I know how much there is of good in you. I know how clever you are, how excellent your heart is, how sweet your disposition. I trust, I trust in God, you may reform, and be the pride of your friends. I trust that I yet may be proud of knowing you——'