"I feel," she said, "like a man who has lived half his life in a house that amply satisfies all his requirements, till one day by chance he touches a secret spring, and discovers a staircase in the wall, leading to a suite of enchanted rooms. He goes back to his study and laboratory and dining-room, and finds them the same, yet not the same: he can never forget that the enchanted rooms are there. He must annex them, and bring them into relation with the rest of the house, and make them a part of his domicile; and to do that he must readjust and expand his views of things, and live on a larger scale."
She looked for no letter, and none came. "When the examination is over in July, I shall be able to say and do things which I dare not say and do now." The words had conveyed no definite meaning to her mind when they were spoken; but she knew now that when August came, and not till then, she would hear from her friend again.
That his behaviour the night before had been inconsistent and unconventional in the highest degree, did not even occur to her. When one experiences an earthquake for the first time, one does not stop to inquire which of its features are peculiar to itself, and which are common to all earthquakes alike. Moreover, it was weeks and months before Mona realised that what had passed between Dr Dudley and herself was as old as the history of man. I am almost ashamed to confess it of a woman whose girlhood was past, and who made some pretension to wisdom, but it is the simple fact that her relation to Dudley seemed to her something unique and unparalleled. While most girls dream of Love, Mona had dreamt of Duty, and now Love came to her as a stranger—a stranger armed with a mysterious, divine right to open up the secret chambers of her heart. She did not analyse and ask herself what it all meant. She lived a day at a time, and was happy.
More than a week elapsed before there appeared in her sky a cloud no bigger than a man's hand, and the cloud took the form of the old inquiry, "What would Dr Dudley say when he learned that she was a medical student, that her life was entirely different from what he had supposed?" She shut her eyes at first when the question asserted itself, and turned her face the other way; but the cloud was there, and it grew. For one moment she thought of writing to him; but the thought was banished almost before it took definite form. To write to him at all, to make any explanation whatever now, would be to assume—what he must be the first to put into words.
As soon as February came in, Mona began to look out for a successor in the shop, and to prepare her cousin for her approaching departure. It was days before Rachel would even bear to have the subject broached. Then came a period of passionate protestation and indignant complaint; but when at length the good soul understood that Mona had never really belonged to her at all, she began to lavish upon her young cousin a wealth of tearful affection that touched Mona's heart to the quick.
"It has been such a quiet, restful winter," Mona said one day, when the time of complaint was giving place to the time of affection; "and in some respects the happiest of my life."
"Then why should you go? I am sure, Mona, I am not one to speak of these things; but anybody can see how it is with Mr Brown. Every day I am expecting him to pop the question. You surely won't refuse a chance like that. You are getting on, you know, and he is so steady and so clever, and so fond of all the things you like yourself."
Mona's cheeks had regained their wonted colour before she answered, "In the first place, dear, I shall not 'get the chance,' as you call it; in the second place, I should never think of accepting it, if I did."
"Well, I'm sure, there's no getting to the bottom of you. I could understand your not thinking the shop genteel—some folks have such high and mighty notions—but it is not that with you. You know I've always said you were a born shopkeeper. I never kept any kind of accounts before you came, but I don't really think I made anything by the shop at all to speak of—I don't indeed! So many things got mislaid, and, when they cast up again, they were soiled and faded, and one thing and another. I showed Mr Brown your books, and told him what we had made last quarter, and he was perfectly astonished. I am sure he thinks you would be a treasure in a shop like his. My niece, Mary Ann, was capital company, and all her ways were the same as mine like, but she wasn't a shopkeeper like you. She was aye forgetting to put things back in their places, and there would be such a to-do when they were wanted again. Poor thing! I wonder if she's got quit of that lady-help, as she calls her—lady-hindrance is liker it, by my way of thinking! And then, Mona, I did hope you would see your way to being baptised. That was a great thing about Mary Ann. She was a member of the church, and that gave us so many more things to talk about like. She was as fond of the prayer-meeting as I was myself."
"You will come and see me sometimes," Rachel said, a few days later.