‘What a soft, white hand it is!’ he said admiringly. ‘You’re a good, kind lass, Nell, but I doubt if you could do much work with such fingers as these. Where did you get them from? Who’d think you’d done hard work in your lifetime? They look like a lady’s, so smooth and soft. You must have had a fine easy place of it up at Lord Ilfracombe’s, Nell. It was a pity you ever left it. You won’t get such another in a hurry.’
‘No, father, I know that,’ she answered sadly.
‘And you think you were foolish to chuck it, my girl? You fret a bit over it sometimes, eh, Nell?’
‘Sometimes, father,’ she said in a low voice.
‘Ah, my lass, you see we never know what’s best for us. I was main glad to see ye home, so was mother; but if times get worse than they are, I shall be sorry ye ever came.’
‘Then I’ll go to service again,’ she answered quickly. ‘Don’t be afraid I’ll ever be a burden on you, dear father. I am capable of filling many situations—a nurse’s, for instance. If, as you say, times get worse, I’ll practise on little Griffith, and advertise for a place in the nursery.’
She spoke in jest, but Mr Llewellyn took her words in earnest.
‘Ay, my lass, and you’d get it too. The earl would give you a grand character, I’m bound to say. Wouldn’t he, now? Three years is a good time to stay in one place.’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Nell hastily, as she remembered the circumstances under which she had left Grosvenor Square, and hurried away for fear her father should take it in his head to question her about it.
Poor Nell! Her absent lord was never absent from her heart or thoughts; but she dared not indulge herself in too much reminiscence lest she should break down under it. Whilst Lord Ilfracombe was growing happier day by day in the increasing affection of his wife, the unfortunate woman whom he believed to be buried beneath the bosom of the river was wearing her heart out for news of him, and wondering often how she could possibly contrive to get sight or speech with him without attracting the attention of her friends. By day she had little leisure to indulge in dreaming; but as soon as night fell, and she found herself in solitude and silence on her bed, the ghost of her happy, reckless past would walk out of its sanctuary to confront her, and she would lie awake half the night, pondering on Ilfracombe’s appearance, and recalling his tenderest moments and sayings and doings, till she had worked herself up into a state of despair. She had persuaded herself that her separation from her lover was no fault of his, but the combined work of Mr Sterndale and the woman he had married, and that if Ilfracombe saw her again all his first admiration and affection would be rekindled.