Harriet made no response. Outwardly she was concerned with some directions to Nelly, waiting to take the child to bed, but inwardly she was wondering if Austen ever could have cared for this Charlotte Ransome.
He sat long after Harriet had gone. Then, rising abruptly, he went out the front door and walked to the corner of the house. It was dark in the coachman’s room above the stable, and the master could go to bed secure that his oil was not being wasted.
That was all, yet he did not go in. The night was perfect, full of moonlight and the scent of earth and growing things. It was so still the houses along the street seemed asleep.
Almost furtively, the gaze of Austen lifted to the cottage, dark and silent across the way. He had been the one who would not forgive; the other had been only an impetuous girl.
He stood there long. Perhaps his face was colder, his lips pressed to a thinner line; perhaps it was the moonlight. Then he turned and went into the house.
CHAPTER SIX
Alexina came to Harriet with information.
“Emily goes to school to her aunt, and King William goes there, too.”