‘But have we quarrelled?’ said Nell, wistfully. ‘Cannot we be friends still, Hugh, as we were before—before your last visit, you know? We are rather sad up at Panty-cuckoo just now. Father seems quite down-hearted about his farm. Sir Archibald has decided to raise the rent again, and father says he won’t be able to make the place pay if he does. Sometimes he talks of emigrating. Fancy his doing that at his age! and, oftener, the poor old man says he has lived too long, and it will be a good day when he is carried to Usk churchyard. And, what with that, and—and—other things, I think sometimes, Hugh, that life is altogether too hard to bear; and it is a pity mine wasn’t ended when I tried to end it!’
‘Poor Nell,’ said Hugh. ‘No, don’t say that. If your life had not held better things in store for you, surely the Lord would not have given it back to you twice running. But I must come over and talk to your father, and see if I cannot cheer him up. If the worst comes to the worst, Nell, I don’t see why he should not try his fortune in another country. He is not so very old—sixty or thereabouts, I think—and he will take his experience with him, and sell it, maybe, to other men. There are countries, as I daresay you have heard—like Canada, for instance—where Government gives the land away to men who can cultivate it; and your father must have a good sum of money sunk in his stock and implements. With a little money in hand, a man with knowledge may do wonders in Canada or New Zealand, and live out there as long again as he would have done in England.’
‘Oh, Hugh, you are talking nonsense. How would father and mother feel, uprooted from the old place where they have spent almost all their lives, and set down in a strange country, without a friend or acquaintance near them? They would die. They couldn’t stand it. It would be too great a wrench.’
‘Would not you go with them?’ asked Hugh dubiously.
‘I? Oh, yes, of course I should. But what good should I be to them? Only an extra burden. If father had a son it would be different. But he would require some strong young head and hand to lift the greater part of the burden off his shoulders.’
‘I agree with you. But don’t stand talking here. You don’t look fit for that yet, Nell. Surely you should be looking more like your old self after all these months. Sit down on this turf, it is quite dry, and let us talk over what you have told me, together.’
He held out his hand to her as he spoke, and Nell availed herself of his assistance to take a seat on the bank by the side of the field.
‘Oh, Nell!’ he exclaimed as he released it, ‘how hot your hand is, and how thin! Do you feel weak?’
‘Not over strong,’ replied Nell, laughing as they sat down, side by side. It was true that she had hardly gained any strength worth speaking of since her illness. The wild longings she indulged in—the regrets for her lost position, and the remorse with which she was occasionally attacked—were all working a great and abiding change in her constitution. The old people saw her going about as usual, and never heard her complain; so they thought she was all right, and attributed any little languor or daintiness on her part to her London schooling. But Hugh, with a lover’s eye, perceived the change in her vividly, and noted with grief the hollowness of her eyes and the attenuation of her hand.
‘My poor girl,’ he said tenderly, as he gazed at her thin face, ‘what have you been doing to yourself? You’ve been fretting sorely, I’m afraid, Nell, since I saw you last.’