For the sound of the tempest had brought the eternal shadow that lurks in the background of every human joy to the young girl's soul, and she was ready to reproach herself for her own exuberant gladness.
"It's much better not to think of it at all," said Arthur lightly—"at least not to disturb one's self;" and then he added more gravely, "I think if we each do our best to lessen the amount of human suffering, we may safely enjoy our own happiness."
"And you are doing yours," said Adèle, looking admiringly at the young face ennobled by its transient gravity; "if you succeed in bringing back happiness to that one life, it will be something to have lived for."
"If I succeed!" Arthur sighed; some of the rebellious thoughts of the preceding evening were troubling him once more. He rose and paced the room. "I feel so restless, Adèle," he said in explanation. "When this storm has cleared off a little I shall go out for a stroll."
Was there a reason for his restlessness? Had some electric current, flashing through the troubled air, notified him of the terrible scene that was being enacted under the storm-sounds in the distant little village, where the woman to whom the first love of his boyhood had been given was, as he fondly believed, resting calmly in her dwelling, cheered by the hope and confidence he had brought her?
Who can tell? for life has many chords, and Nature has agents infinite and varied to work her strange will, and humanity is a complex thing that no philosopher has yet been able to resolve into all its component parts. Matter he may hold, but mind defies him, and these strange coincidences, these half-revelations, are all of the impalpable spirit, humanity's crown and power.
It will be remembered that in the course of the last conversation between Margaret Grey and her young protector he had expressed in very strong terms his distrust of her landlady, and had even hinted some suspicion of her false dealing in the information she had given about the lost child.
That conversation had been overheard by Jane Rodgers. Something of this she had suspected, and with ear applied to the keyhole she had been listening to every syllable of the conversation. Much of it had been inexplicable. It required the disclosures of the morning, which had been given on the sea-shore utterly out of reach of her ears, to give any meaning to much that passed between Mrs. Grey and her visitor; but this one thing clung to Jane's mind with a sullen persistency. The young man had seen through her—her lodger distrusted her.
Jane was conscious of this: that she had been guilty of double-dealing, that she had received a bribe for carrying out a certain purpose, that she had given the cunning of a clever brain to helping forward the commission of what she knew to be a crime. And this she had done, not for the money's sake, though Jane was fond of gold, but for the gratification of a hatred which was daily strengthening in her narrow mind. Jane had not many passions or affections; she had, as she thought, outlived the gentler ones, she had grown hard in a hard school; and this hatred had taken all the deeper root. It grew, in fact, till it absorbed her, and drowned in its turbid depths every other emotion.
She had long disliked her mistress—at first she could scarcely have told why. Perhaps it was Mrs. Grey's peculiar beauty and grace and the quiet dignity of her manner that made her so utterly antipathetic to her landlady. Little natures are apt to be jealous in a wild, unreasonable kind of way. Jane in the course of her life as a servant had come often into close contact with beauty, wealth, happiness, but none of these had affected her so strongly as the constant presence of this patient lady, who, she had taught herself to believe, was "no good," and yet whose quiet dignity and calm superiority made her universally respected and admired.