A Girl of the Commune

by G. A. Henty

They were both standing now.

"You are talking nonsense, child," he said, tenderly, as he took her hand. "You know I love you truly. Surely my pictures must have told you that. Honestly now, did you not feel that it was so?"

"I did not know you loved me then, Cuthbert. There were other things, you know, that made me feel it could not be so, but then that for the first time I really knew——" and she stopped.

"That you loved me, darling?" and he drew her closer to him. "Now, you gave me a straightforward answer before—I insist on as straightforward a one now."

And this time the answer was not, No.

"Mind," he said a few minutes afterwards, "your vocation is definitely fixed at last, Mary, and there must be no more changing."

"As if you did not know there won't be," she said, saucily. And then suddenly altering her tone she went on, "Now, Cuthbert, you will surely tell me what you would not before. What did you find out? It is something about my father, I am sure."

"Let me think before I answer you," he said, and then sat silent for two or three minutes. "Well," he said, at last, "I think you have a right to know. You may be sure that in any case I should before, for your sake, have done everything in my power towards arranging things amicably with him. Now, of course, that feeling is vastly stronger, and for my own sake as well as yours I should abstain from any action against him. Mind, at present I have only vague suspicions, but if those suspicions turn out true, it will be evident that your father has been pursuing a very tortuous policy, to put it no stronger, in order to gain possession of Fairclose. I cannot say definitely as yet what I shall do, but at present I incline to the opinion that I shall drop the matter altogether."

"Not for my sake, Cuthbert," she said, firmly. "I have always felt uneasy about it. I can scarcely say why, but I am afraid it is so. Of course I know my father better than people in general do. I have known that he was not what he seemed to be. It has always been my sorest trouble, that we have never got on well together. He has never liked me, and I have not been able to respect him. I know that if he has done anything absolutely wrong—it seems terrible that I should even think such a thing possible—but if it has been so—I know you will not expose him."

"We will not talk any more about it, dear," Cuthbert interrupted; "it is all the vaguest suspicion, so let us put it aside altogether now. Just at present I am a great deal too happy to give as much as a thought to unpleasant matters. We have to attend to the business of the hour, and you have the two years of love of which I have been deprived to make up for."