“Can you ask me?”
At this, which implied that her illness was the cause of his, she turned her head away from him with weariness and disgust, and looked at the sea, and thought of the dead.
Coventry sat speechless, and eyed her silent figure with miserable devotion. He was by her side once more, and no rival near. He set himself to study all her moods, and began by being inoffensive to her; in time he might be something more.
He spent four days in Eastbank, and never uttered a word of love; but his soft soothing voice was ever in her ear, and won her attention now and then; not often.
When he left her, she did not ask him to come again.
Her father did, though, and told him to be patient; better days were in store. “Give her time,” said he, “and, a month or two hence, if you have the same feeling for her you used to have—”
“I love her more than ever. I worship her—”
“Then you will have me on your side, stronger than ever. But you must give her time.”
And now Coventry had an ally far more powerful than himself—an ally at once zealous and judicious. Mr. Carden contented himself at first with praising him in general terms; next he affected to laugh at him for renting the villa, merely to be in the place which Grace had occupied. Then Grace defended him. “Don't laugh at an honest love. Pity it. It is all we can do, and the least we can do.”
But when he advanced further, and began to remind his daughter she had once given this gentleman hopes, and all but engaged herself to him, she drew back with fear and repugnance, and said, “If he can not forget that, pray let him never come near me again.”