‘I don’t know. I fancy he has something on his mind, and the mater too. They will be in an awful way when I tell them your decision. I suppose you can’t change it, Maud?’
‘I’m afraid not, Lewis; I would if I could. But don’t you tell them my decision. I will do that myself on my birthday. I will not give my final answer yet; I reserve to myself the right of changing my mind. Don’t build on hope, but don’t tell them anything. I should like to tell them myself.’
Lewis accepted this suggestion with some relief. He was cast down in spirit, and had no wish to face a blustering or craven father. He had taken his rejection more quietly than he had planned, because he saw at once from Maud’s manner that his case was hopeless. For some reasons he felt this final decision almost a relief. Maud had not been far wrong in saying that his love was not of quite the right kind; and he was conscious that his position as Maud’s husband would be anything but a pleasant one, did his father prove—as he almost feared he would prove—to have committed follies, and even worse, which would bring his name into unenviable notoriety. Lewis had begun to have strong suspicions as to his father’s integrity, and these painful doubts had been doubly painful when he had thought of Maud. He loved her well enough to wish to spare her all needless pain—well enough to be almost disinterested. But this is hardly the feeling of the ardent lover, and Maud was not wrong in saying to herself that night, that the interview was well over, and Lewis’s heart was not broken.
CHAPTER VII.
BETSY LONG.
rs. Belassis had been discomfited by her sister and her niece—by the two beings she had been accustomed to snub and trample upon at will—and her defeat at their hands was as bitter a pill as she had ever been called upon to swallow.
Moreover, she was conscious of having brought her defeat upon herself by acting with less than her ordinary caution. What had occurred at Ladywell only a few days back, ought to have been enough to deter her from a second attempt at search. She had known this all along, but her intense eagerness to gain possession of the document, of whose existence they now felt certain, and the discovery of which, if made by other hands, would cause such a terrible bouleversement of all their cherished plans, had overcome her prudence.
With such a consummation staring her in the face, it was no wonder that Mrs. Belassis was willing to run some risk; but now she wished she had been more circumspect. She felt she had put herself at a disadvantage by this second visit—had laid herself open to suspicion and contempt; and a fear arose in her mind that, by showing her hand too openly, she might have given a clue to others as to the object of her search.