During visits to the house, Mrs Glaire, with tears, avowed that she could do nothing, only hope, for Richard was stubbornness itself, and when for a moment he thought of inducing Eve to play the part of intercessor, the poor girl’s wan and piteous look pained him so that he could not ask her, and it was brought thoroughly home to him that she must love Richard very dearly, though now they were cruelly estranged; and as he sat and gazed upon her, and grew more and more intimate, learning the sweet truth of her nature, and thorough self-denial, he felt half maddened to think she should be thrown away upon such a man, and told himself that he would gladly have seen her wedded to any one to escape so terrible a union.
The past and Daisy Banks were quite ignored. She was a trouble that had come upon the mother and cousin’s life, but she was removed apparently from their path, unless some of the letters Richard so regularly wrote were for her.
Murray felt his position in connection with the family acutely. The rumour spread by Budd as to his being forbidden the house was false, but scarcely a day passed when Richard came down, after indulging himself a week in bed to cure ills from which he really did not suffer, but for which stout Mr Purley doctored him stolidly, and made his sister enter them in the day-book when he got home—scarcely a day passed without the vicar having to submit to some insult.
He would have stayed away, but for Mrs Glaire, who looked to him for her support in this time of trouble; and he would have avoided Eve’s society, dear to him as it was, but for the sweet ingenuous looks with which she greeted him, and laid bare her innocent, truthful heart to his gaze. To her he was dear Mr Selwood, whose hands she had kissed when he promised her to leave no stone unturned to bring Richard to the path of duty; and her belief in him was, that with his strong mind and knowledge of the world, he would do this, that Richard would be quite reformed; and make her, to her aunt’s lasting happiness, a good and loving husband.
And she—does she love him? the vicar often asked himself, and he was compelled to answer, “No!”
For there was no deep passion, only the sorrow for Richard’s frailties, the disappointment and bitterness of the young girl, who finds the man to whom she is betrothed is a scoundrel, and fights with self to keep from believing it. No, Eve did not love him with all her heart, for a true love passion had never yet gained an entrance. Richard was to be her husband; that was settled; and some day, when he showed his sorrow and repented, she would forgive him, and become his wife.
And had she the least idea that another loved her?
Not the least. Mr Selwood was her and her aunt’s dear friend, working with them for the same end, and some day in the future, when Richard was forgiven, he would make them man and wife.
This was the state of Eve’s heart at the present period of the story; but a change was coming—a look, a word, or a touch, something had thrilled one of the fibres of Eve’s being, directly after the saving of Richard from his men; and, though innocent of its meaning, the first germ of a thought which she came afterwards to term “disloyal to Richard,” was planted in her heart, and began to grow.
The vicar was at home, busy over his garden. It had been a busy morning, and Mrs Slee had informed him that she was “dead bet.” And she must have been tired, for fully a hundred people had been for relief that morning, the munificent sums the young vicar devoted to the workmen’s families having been of late supplemented by money furnished by Mrs Glaire.