Mrs. Brander’s voice was not capable of expressing much deep emotion; but she lowered it, as she said these words, to the softest pitch it could reach.
“Forget!” he echoed. “That is a process my mind is incapable of. I think you know that, Evelyn.”
She gave him a straightforwardly, affectionate look out of her handsome eyes.
“Perhaps I do, Vernon,” she said, gently. “Perhaps I think your mind incapable of any process by which you could bring suffering upon another person.”
Vernon looked down into her beautiful face critically. There was genuine anxiety in her expression, but it did not touch him as much as a similar expression on those comely features had been wont to do. For the last few weeks he had been haunted by another woman’s face, one which betrayed most ingenuously every thought of the owner’s mind, every impulse of a warm young heart. Mrs. Brander was intelligent enough to have an idea of the truth; and when she saw that her soft speech left him comparatively cold, she did not waste another on him, but rose from her seat with a sigh, and bent over her table in such a way that he could not see her face. The sensitive Vernon instantly began to imagine tears in her eyes, drawn forth by his own hardness. He was seeking words to comfort her when the door opened, and Meredith came in. His genial presence seemed on the instant to relieve the embarrassment of the other two.
“It seems to me, my dear,” he began to his wife, “that Kitty is not looking any the better for her stay at Bournemouth. I went upstairs with the children just now, and I was quite struck with the paleness of the child’s cheeks.”
As the vicar uttered these words, a change came rapidly over his brother’s face. He glanced from father to mother with an expression of the deepest anxiety, which Mrs. Brander, while answering her husband in calm and measured tones, did not fail to note.
“I think you worry yourself unnecessarily about the child. She’s tired now after her journey; she will probably look all right again to-morrow.”
The vicar allowed himself to be pacified by his wife’s assurances, and, leading his brother away to the fireplace, they occupied themselves, until the announcement of dinner, in discussing the trifling events which had happened in the parish during the vicar’s absence. Mrs. Brander listened with an especially attentive ear while her brother-in-law gave a somewhat detailed account of the arrival of the new occupants of Rishton Hall Farm, including, as it necessarily did, the story of his own assistance at their installation.
Mrs. Brander did not attempt to deceive herself as to the strong measure of interest which the beautiful young farmer’s daughter had excited in Vernon. Neither did she disguise from herself the anxiety and annoyance which this discovery caused her. Instead, however, of indulging in any feelings of feminine jealousy, she set herself to try to devise a way of ousting this rival. A ray of light broke suddenly over her handsome face.