Mrs. Gaunt saw his agitation, but did not interpret it aright.
She came eagerly and sat on a stool beside him. "Dear father," she said, "do not let their insolence grieve you. They have smarted for it, and shall smart till they make their submission to you, and beg and entreat you to come to us again. Meantime, since you cannot visit me, I visit you. Confess me, father, and then direct me with your counsels. Ah! if you could but give me the Christian temper to carry them out firmly but meekly! 'Tis my ungoverned spirit hath wrought all this mischief, mea culpa! mea culpa!"
By this time Leonard had recovered his self-possession, and he spent an hour of strange intoxication, confessing his idol, sentencing his idol to light penances, directing and advising his idol, and all in the soft murmurs of a lover.
She left him and the room seemed to darken.
Two days only elapsed, and she came again. Visit succeeded to visit: and her affection seemed boundless.
The insult he had received was to be avenged in one place, and healed in another, and if possible, effaced with tender hand.
So she kept all her sweetness for that little cottage, and all her acidity for Hernshaw Castle.
It was an evil hour when Griffith attacked her saint with violence. The woman was too high-spirited, and too sure of her own rectitude, to endure that: so, instead of crushing her, it drove her to retaliation; and to imprudence.
These visits to console Father Leonard were quietly watched by Ryder, for one thing. But, worse than that, they placed Mrs. Gaunt in a new position with Leonard, and one that melts the female heart. She was now the protectress and the consoler of a man she admired and revered. I say if any thing on earth can breed love in a grand female bosom, this will.
She had put her foot on a sunny slope clad with innocent-looking flowers; but more and more precipitous at every step, and perdition at the bottom.