There was but a few hours of respite, then the hall table was covered with letters of welcome and cards. The same evening Mrs. Severn drove over. It seemed to her years since she had parted with her beloved child.
“You will not see Mr. Eyrle among your friends,” she said, as they sat at dinner; “he went away three weeks ago.”
“Then he is not married?” said Sir Ronald, hastily.
“No,” she replied, with some little surprise, “I never heard even a rumor of his marriage.”
“You forget,” said Lady Clarice, hastily. “It was not publicly known.”
So, then, Lady Hermione was still free—no adoring husband or jealous lover was there. He would rather ten thousand times over been told that she was married and was most passionately attached to her husband; that would have been better news for him; the barrier between them would have been doubled. He did not like to think that any time he went out he should meet her, perhaps more beautiful than ever, to renew all his misery. He had all the respect of a true, pure-hearted Englishman for the sanctity of the marriage tie, and he wished that the barrier between himself and the woman he loved were as great and strong on her side as on his.
“Clarice,” he said to his wife, “I have altered my mind. Nay, you are going to tell me that I am claiming a woman’s privilege; let it be so. I am not much stronger than a woman in some things. I shall not invite the Lorristons to Aldenmere.”
She looked up at him with a sudden cloud of anxiety on her face.
“Why, Ronald?”
“It would not be pleasant. After all, they did not behave well to me. We had better, I think, keep that distance that seems to have grown between us.”