CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Letter from Allen Fenwick to Lilian Ashleigh.
“I have promised to go to Derval Court to-day, and shall not return
till to-morrow. I cannot bear the thought that so many hours should
pass away with one feeling less kind than usual resting like a cloud
upon you and me. Lilian, if I offended you, forgive me! Send me one
line to say so!—one line which I can place next to my heart and
cover with grateful kisses till we meet again!”
Reply.
“I scarcely know what you mean, nor do I quite understand my own state
of mind at this moment. It cannot be that I love you less—and
yet—but I will not write more now. I feel glad that we shall not
meet for the next day or so, and then I hope to be quite recovered. I
am not well at this moment. Do not ask me to forgive you; but if it
is I who am in fault, forgive me, oh, forgive me, Allen!”
And with this unsatisfactory note, not worn next to my heart, not covered with kisses, but thrust crumpled into my desk like a creditor’s unwelcome bill, I flung myself on my horse and rode to Derval Court. I am naturally proud; my pride came now to my aid. I felt bitterly indignant against Lilian, so indignant that I resolved on my return to say to her, “If in those words, ‘And yet,’ you implied a doubt whether you loved me less, I cancel your vows, I give you back your freedom.” And I could have passed from her threshold with a firm foot, though with the certainty that I should never smile again.
Does her note seem to you who may read these pages to justify such resentment? Perhaps not. But there is an atmosphere in the letters of the one we love which we alone—we who love—can feel, and in the atmosphere of that letter I felt the chill of the coming winter.
I reached the park lodge of Derval Court late in the day. I had occasion to visit some patients whose houses lay scattered many miles apart, and for that reason, as well as from the desire for some quick bodily exercise which is so natural an effect of irritable perturbation of mind, I had made the journey on horseback instead of using a carriage that I could not have got through the lanes and field-paths by which alone the work set to myself could be accomplished in time.
Just as I entered the park, an uneasy thought seized hold of me with the strength which is ascribed to presentiments. I had passed through my study (which has been so elaborately described) to my stables, as I generally did when I wanted my saddle-horse, and, in so doing, had doubtless left open the gate to the iron palisade, and probably the window of the study itself. I had been in this careless habit for several years, without ever once having cause for self-reproach. As I before said, there was nothing in my study to tempt a thief; the study was shut out from the body of the house, and the servant sure at nightfall both to close the window and lock the gate; yet now, for the first time, I felt an impulse, urgent, keen, and disquieting, to ride back to the town, and see those precautions taken. I could not guess why, but something whispered to me that my neglect had exposed me to some great danger. I even checked my horse and looked at my watch; too late!—already just on the stroke of Strahan’s dinner-hour as fixed in his note; my horse, too, was fatigued and spent: besides, what folly! what bearded man can believe in the warnings of a “presentiment”? I pushed on, and soon halted before the old-fashioned flight of stairs that led up to the Hall. Here I was accosted by the old steward; he had just descended the stairs, and as I dismounted he thrust his arm into mine unceremoniously, and drew me a little aside.