Alice was kneeling by his side now, crying unrestrainedly.
“Poor child!” he said, stroking her hair. “I have been a downright brute lately, but I could not help it; we shall get on better again after a while. To think how all my plans and schemes have gone wrong. How I loved that boy, and trusted him and believed in him. How I have gladdened my heart to think that after I was gone you would be standing together in the old hall of Wyvern. And how he has turned out——”
“No, no, uncle!” Alice burst out, “don't say anything against him—I can't bear it, I can't bear it! I know it is so; but even now, though I know it, though he says not a word, I don't believe it in my heart. The Frank I loved—for I did love him, uncle—could not have done it, I know he could not. You tell me he has. He does not answer. He tells me so himself. Still I say he could not. Please don't speak against him, uncle—please never mention him again. Let us think he is dead; we can forgive the dead, you know. Let us think he died a month ago when he said good-bye.”
“Ah, that mistake of mine,” the old man began, when Alice interrupted him,—
“No, uncle, you must not think that—that pain is over long ago. I did love him once, dearly, and I suffered, yes, I own I suffered, when I found out I had deceived myself, but I had got over that. He could never be anything to me, and I had taught myself to look upon him as a dear friend, a brother. No, uncle, it is not the man I had loved, but the brother I esteemed and trusted and believed in, whom I am grieving for now.”
“It shall be as you like, dear,” her uncle said, kissing her. “And now, when will you be ready to start?”
“The sooner the better, uncle. I have nothing to do but to pack up. By the day after to-morrow I shall be quite ready.”
And so, in two more days, the house at Lowndes Square was shut up, and the old captain was missed from his well known seat at his club.