It was a dull, drizzly day, enough to depress the most elastic of temperaments. Violet was in her father's study, looking out upon the mist of rain and cloud, debating with herself whether she should be present during Marmaduke's visit or not. After what had passed, she tried to persuade herself that it was fortunate he was going to quit England, fearing that her resolution would never hold out against his renewed entreaties; but it was in vain she sophisticated with herself, her heart told her that she was wretched, intensely wretched at his departure.
Her father's voice roused her from this reverie, and she passed into the drawing-room, where a few minutes afterwards the servant entered, and announced "Mr. Ashley."
A stream of fire seemed suddenly to pour along her veins; but by the time he had shaken hands with Vyner and Blanche, and had turned to her, she was comparatively calm. His face was very sallow, and there was a nervous quivering of his delicate nostrils, which indicated the emotion within, but which was unobserved by her, as her eyes were averted.
The conversation was uneasy and common-place. Marmaduke's manner was calm and composed, but his voice was low. Violet sat with her eyes upon the carpet, deadly pale, and with colourless lips. Blanche, who did not quite understand the relation between them, but who knew that Violet loved him, was anxious on her account. Vyner alone was glib and easy. He talked of parliament, and remarked, that the best thing he knew of it was, that the members always quoted Horace.
As the interview proceeded, Marmaduke's grave, cold manner became slightly tinged with irony and bitterness; and when Vyner said to him, "Apropos, what—if the question be permissible—what induces you to leave us? are you to be away long?"
He replied, with a marked emphasis, "Very long."
"Is Brazil, then, so very attractive?"
"England ceases to be attractive. I want breathing space. There I can, as Tennyson sings,—
'Burst all the links of habit—there to wander far away,
On from island unto island, at the gateways of the day.'"
Blanche, mildly interposing, said,—