"The firste vertue, sone, if thou wilt lerne,
Is to restreine, and kepen wel thy tonge."
—The Manciple's Tale—Chaucer.
The days have grown shorter and shorter. Daylight now is to be prized, not sported with, as in the gay and happy Summer. "The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time" has carried us from "Golden September" to bleakest Winter, and into that month which claims Christmas for its own.
At the hall, everything is very much the same as it was when last we saw it, if we except the fact that Roger is absent. He is abroad; so much abroad, indeed, that nobody knows where he is. A week after his departure he had written to Sir Christopher, and the week after that again to Mark Gore; but, beyond these two meagre attempts at correspondence, no news has been heard of him. Whether, as Mr. Browne has elegantly expressed it, "he is up the Nile, or up the Spout," is a matter of speculation.
Sir Christopher is looking a little older, a little graver. He is not so testy as of yore, a change that fills Dulce's heart with misgivings. That he has fretted greatly over her broken engagement with Roger (who is to the old Baronet as dear as his own son should have been, and second only to Fabian in his affections) she well knows; she well knows, too, how magnanimously—to please her—he has tried to be civil to Stephen Gower, and to welcome him with cordiality as his future nephew. But the effort to do all this has aged and saddened him; and from time to time his mind wanders restlessly to the young man who left his home full of anger and indignant grief.
As for Stephen, living in his "Fool's Paradise, he drinks delight," nor heeds how false is all the happiness that seems to surround him. Bitter is the fruit he feeds on, though he will not acknowledge it even to himself; and, looking on his dainty lady-love, he is still happy, and content to bear all things, and suffer all things, for the few grains of adulterated sweetness doled out by her every now and then with a niggard hand. He will see no cloud on his horizon, although it sits there heavily; nor will he notice aught but what is good and lovable in this girl, upon whom he has centred all his dearest hopes.
For the rest, there has been but little change amongst them. Julia Beaufort and the children had gone away for a month, but returned to the Hall a fortnight ago, and are now—that is, the children, at all events—anxiously awaiting Christmas Day with all its affectations of gaiety and goodwill, and its hideous paddings.
Sir Mark did pretty much the same as Julia. He went away, too, and came back again, thus filling up the measure of his days. Mr. Browne had declined to stir for any pretense whatever, and has been enjoying himself to the utmost, now at Portia's feet, now at Dulce's, and, when all things fail, at Julia's.
Perhaps to Fabian the days have seemed longest. He is silent, cold, self-contained as ever; but now there is something else, a settled melancholy, that yet has in it a mixture of extreme pride, that forbids any approach to it; a melancholy born of despair, and the knowledge that there is laid upon him "a burden greater than he can bear."
"Time, the subtle thief of youth," is stealing from him his best years; his life is going, and with it all chance of joy and gladness. Ever since that memorable evening in the garden, after the ball, a strange reserve has arisen between him and Portia. That morning, as the soft pink dawn came up from behind the hills—when passion, pale but triumphant, had held full sway—has never been forgiven by either. A sense of terror has possessed Portia ever since—the knowledge of a danger barely overcome; and with him there has been the memory of pain, and terrible self-restraint that has scathed him as it passed him by. And withal a settled coldness has fallen upon them, the greater because of the weakness that had characterised the hour of which I write.