"Mother! dearest mother!" cried Helen, rising and going towards her brother, who seemed petrified at the words he heard, "how for a single moment could you believe that Charles's heart could echo any word that spoke not honour and love towards you!"
"He might have been mistaken, Helen," replied her mother with a heavy sigh: "Charles could not indeed suspect that the mother his dear father so fully trusted should prove unworthy of the trust.—But let us quit this painful theme; and believe me, my children, that the first wish of my heart is to prove myself worthy of his trust and your love."
"Such words are just what we might expect to hear from you, mother," said Mowbray, "were any profession from you to us necessary; but I would gladly forget that you have ever thought such an assurance called for."
He bent down and kissed her fervently; and then making a sign to Helen, who seemed about to follow him, that she should remain where she was, he walked out for a couple of hours among the darkest thickets he could find, with more of melancholy feeling than had ever before rested on his spirits.
CHAPTER V.
THE ARISTOCRACY OF WREXHILL.
There was no longer any thing to prevent Charles Mowbray's return to Oxford, and the following day the time of his departure was canvassed, and at length fixed for the early part of the following week. During the few days that intervened, Mrs. Mowbray seemed quite to have forgotten their painful conversation respecting the will; she resumed all her former confiding tenderness of manner, and told him before they parted, that henceforward his liberal allowance would be doubled.
The day preceding his departure was Sunday, and for the first time since their heavy loss the whole family appeared at church. They had all dreaded the moment of reappearing before the eyes of the little village world, and of thus giving public notice, as it were, that they no longer required to be left to mourn in secret: but this painful ceremony came, and was endured, like those that had preceded it; and poor Helen, as she laid her head upon her pillow, exclaimed, "What is there that we could not bear, and live."
The sad parting of the next morning having also passed over them, they at once, and by necessity, fell into the mode of life which they were hereafter to pursue. But dreary and heavy was the change that had fallen on them, and it was long ere the mere act of assembling for their daily meals ceased to be a source of suffering—for fearful was the blank left by the absence of the kind, the gentle, the beloved, the venerated being, whose voice was used to speak a blessing and a welcome over every repast. But our natures seize with avidity the healing balm which time and occupation offer: much variety of disposition was, however, manifested in the manner in which each one of the family sought the consolation they needed.