We must now take a retrospective glance at Broadhurst during the short space that had elapsed since Lewis quitted it, and learn how events, which caused him such bitter grief, have been brought about.
’Tis the night of Lewis’s departure, and Annie Grant sits at her open window gazing pensively at the moon, which moon, by the way, was at that identical moment lighting the old abbey and shining on her lover’s throbbing brow, as he stood thinking of her beside the ruined altar. Now Annie was by no means in a comfortable frame of mind; in the first place, she began more than to suspect that she was falling deeply in love, and in the second, “the thing she loved” had not exactly “died,” but what was quite as inconvenient and much more inexplicable, had suddenly “conveyed itself away” without telling her why or wherefore. Lewis and Walter had of late been in the habit of spending their evenings in the drawing-room, General Grant considering that it was desirable to accustom the latter to the forms and habits of society, but on that evening they had not made their appearance as usual; Annie had inquired of her aunt the reason of their absence. Miss Livingstone, looking like a very vicious old owl, replied “that really she was the last person likely to know. General Grant was doubtless well informed on the subject, but he was always strangely, and as she thought, most unnecessarily reserved; she believed Mr. Arundel had been driven to resign his situation, and she was not at all surprised; she did not know who that could avoid it would reside in a family ordered about like a regiment of dragoons; she dared say Lord Bellefield had some broken-down blackleg ready to recommend as tutor to teach Walter gambling and horse-racing. Would Annie oblige her by looking under the sofa? she thought she saw the shadow of a man’s foot against the chimney-piece; she expected they should all be murdered in their beds of a night, now the only person able to defend them was driven away. Would Annie oblige her by ringing the bell? she wished to ascertain whether Robert had remembered to load the percussion cap of his blunderbuss.” Foiled in this quarter, Annie waited till Lord Bellefield was so obliging as to stroll out in pursuit of a cigar, “smoking under difficulties” being one of his most severe trials during a visit at Broadhurst. When he was gone she attacked her father with a direct inquiry as to what had become of Walter and Mr. Arundel?
“Walter was in his own study, Mr. Arundel was absent,” was the reply.
“Absent,” returned Annie; “why, where is he gone, papa?”
“I did not inquire Mr. Arundel’s intended route, my dear; his age and character render him fully competent to regulate his own movements,” was the stiff response.
Annie’s lip curled: “Able to regulate his own movements!” she thought him fit to rule a universe.
“When is he coming back, papa?”
“A—ahem! not at present, my dear; that is, in fact, you may consider his absence as permanent. The reasons for his departure which he imparted to me lead me to this conclusion.”
“There, I told you so—I said he had been sent away,” observed Minerva snappishly.
“Madam, you have been misinformed,” interposed the General with much irritation; “Mr. Arundel has not been sent away, he resigned his position as tutor to my ward of his own free will, for reasons which I considered good and sufficient.”