After a season of rest, she began earnestly to consider her future, especially with respect to her Art. She longed to go back to it, and drink again at its wells of peace. For dearly, dearly she loved it still. Half-smiling, she began to call her pictures her children, and to think of the time when they, a goodly race, would live, and tell no tale of their creator's woe. This Art-life—all the life she had, and all she would leave behind—must not be sacrificed by any miserable contest with an utterly hopeless human love. Therefore she determined to quit Harbury, and at once, before she began to paint her next picture. Her first plan had been to go and live in London, but this was overruled by Mrs. Flora Rothesay.
“Bide here with me, my dear niece. Come and dwell among your ain folk, your father's kin.”
And so it was at last fixed to be. But first Olive must go back to Farnwood, to wind up the affairs of her little household, and to arrange about Christal. She had lately thought a good deal of this young girl; chiefly, perhaps, because she was now so eagerly clinging to every interest that could occupy her future life. She remembered, with a little compunction, how her heart had sprung to Christal on her first coming, and how that sympathy had slowly died away, possibly from its being so lightly reciprocated. Though nominally one of the household at the Dell, Miss Manners had gradually seceded from it; so that by degrees the interest with which Olive had once regarded her melted down into the mere liking of duty. Whether this should be continued, became now a matter of question. Olive felt almost indifferent on the subject, but determined that Christal herself should decide. She never would give up the girl, not even to go and live in the dear quiet household of Aunt Flora. Having thus far made up her mind, Miss Rothesay fixed the day for her return to Farnwood—a return looked forward to with a mixture of fear and yearning. But the trial must be borne. It could not be for long.
Ever since his departure Olive had never heard the sound of Harold's name. Mrs. Flora did not talk of him at all. This, her niece thought, sprang from the natural forgetfulness of old age, which, even when least selfish, seems unconsciously to narrow its interest to the small circle of its own daily life. But perhaps the old lady was more quick-sighted than Olive dreamed; for such a true and tried heart could hardly be quite frozen, even with the apathy of eighty years.
A few days before Olive's journey Mrs. Flora called her into her own room.
“I have something to say to ye, lassie. Ye'll listen to the auld wife?”
“Aunt Flora!” said Olive, in affectionate reproach, and, sitting down at her feet, she took the withered hand, and laid it on her neck.
“My sweet wee lassie—my bonnie, bonnie birdie!” said the tender-hearted old lady, who often treated her grand-niece as if she were a child. “If I had known sooner that poor Angus had left a daughter! My dearie, come back soon.”
“In a month, Auntie Flora.”
“A month seems long. At eighty years one should not boast of the morrow. That is why I will tell ye now what rests on my mind.”