Hugh Owen was in a burning rage. From the high road he had witnessed Nell’s meeting with the Earl of Ilfracombe, and he put the worst construction upon what he saw. Because this young man was a minister, it must not be supposed that he was naturally amiable and good. On the contrary, he possessed a very high temper, and at times an ungovernable one, and it was raging now. He had perceived a marked difference in Nell lately. She was not the same girl who had confessed her grievous fault to him in Panty-cuckoo Farm, nor promised so sweetly to follow his fortunes to South Africa in the Long Meadow subsequently. For a little while after the latter event, she had been very subdued and gentle with him, as though she were contemplating the serious step to which she had conditionally pledged herself; but since the folks had returned to Usk Hall, she had declined either to walk with him or talk with him. Her old feverish, excitable manner had seemed to return, though Hugh had not liked to connect it with the fact of the Hall being occupied until the fatal moment when he was passing by Sir Archibald’s field and witnessed Nell and the earl in close conversation. Who could she be talking with? What could she have to say to him? Why were their faces so close together? These were the questions that haunted poor Hugh for hours afterwards, and to which he could find no satisfactory solution. He could not trust himself to confront Nell as she went back to the farm—he was afraid of what he might say to her—so he resolved to sleep over it, if the restless, miserable, disturbed slumbers which followed his discovery could be called sleep. But on the next day he felt he must know the reason of what he had seen. The remembrance of it came between him and his duties. He would not be able to preach and pray with an earnest and single heart until it had been relieved of the awful doubt that assailed it. So, the day after, he set forth for the farm, and found Nell, for a wonder, alone and free to receive him. The fact is, she did not dare go out, as she had been used to do lately, for fear of encountering Lord Ilfracombe in the company of his wife or friends. She felt as if she could not bear the sight—as if she should proclaim her right to him before all the world. And that would make him angry—he, who loved her still above all other things; for so had she interpreted his words of the night before. She had been in a state of beatification ever since, and her mother knew no more what to make of her present mood than she had done of her previous one. It would be difficult to say what Nell expected or believed would come of the interview which had made her so happy. Apparently she had given herself no time to think. She knew perfectly well that her intimacy with Ilfracombe was over and done with, and that thenceforward she could have no part nor lot in him or his affairs. She knew she should never enter his house again, nor associate with his acquaintances, nor enjoy any of his good things. Yet she felt supremely happy. To understand her feelings, one must not only be a woman—one must be a woman who has loved and lost, and found that whatever the loss, the love remained as it was. Women have greater faith than men, as a rule, in the unseen and the compensation of an after life. They think more of the heart than of the body of the creature they love, and give them the hope of a reunion in another world—of retaining the eternal affections of the man they care for; and they will try and content themselves with the thought of the future. Far better that, they say, than his companionship on earth, whilst his heart is the property of some other woman. The earl had managed to deceive Nell so well without intending to deceive her, that she was already disposed to pity Lady Ilfracombe, who could only lay claim to his worldly goods. As she had told him, ‘Say you love me best of all the world, and the other woman can have your title and your money.’ She had sat indoors all day dreaming over the unexpected happiness that had come to her—recalling in fancy every word he had uttered, every look he had given, every kiss he had pressed upon her happy mouth. The wretched interval that lay between them had vanished like a dream. She had forgotten the abject misery with which she had received the news of his marriage, the despairing attempt at suicide that followed it, her return home, and the apathetic existence she had led since—all had disappeared under the magic touch of love. She was no longer Nell o’ Panty-cuckoo Farm, as the neighbourhood called her; she was Lord Ilfracombe’s housekeeper, the woman he had chosen to be the mistress of his home. She was his love, his lady, his daily companion. She looked with a kind of pathetic curiosity at the print dress she wore, at the simple arrangement of her chesnut hair, at her ringless fingers and wrists unadorned by bangles. They had all gone—the silks and satins, the golden combs and hairpins, the jewels and laces; but he remained, the pride and jewel of her life. ‘Vernie’ loved her.
It was so wonderful, so delightful, so unexpected, that her head swam when she thought of it. She was just considering whether she might not venture to stroll up the long fields again that evening—whether ‘Vernie’ might not come out as he had done the evening before in hopes of meeting her, when Hugh Owen raised the latch of the farmhouse door and walked unceremoniously in. His entrance annoyed Nell. It disturbed her beautiful reverie, put to flight all her golden dreams, and made her fear lest his visit might be prolonged so as to interfere with her plans. The welcome he received, therefore, was not, to say the least of it, cordial.
‘Neither father nor mother are at home, Hugh,’ she said, as she caught sight of him, ‘and I’m just going out. You’ve come at an unlucky moment.’
‘So I always seem to come now,’ he answered; ‘but I have a word or two to you, Nell, that can’t be put off; so I must ask you to listen to me for a few minutes first.’
‘They must be very few, then, for I’ve got work of my own to do,’ she replied.
‘It’s the work you do that I’ve come to speak to you about,’ said the young man, ‘and I claim the right to do so. I was sauntering up and down the road last night, Nell, in the hope of catching sight of you, when I saw you cross the meadow over there and meet a man and talk to him for better than half an hour. Who was he?’
Nell flared up in her impetuous manner at once.
‘And what business is that of yours?’ she exclaimed.
‘Why, every business in the world! Whose should it be but mine? Haven’t you promised to be my wife?’
‘No!’ cried the girl boldly.