No, he wanted none of their company, and he was glad that it was still unsafe for him to travel, though he longed for the fresh air. But that he did wish for some company became evident to him this afternoon, although he had received with a certain amount of resignation a note in which Ellen informed him that their father seemed so fidgety and unwell that she could not drive over to Bradmouth that day. He could no longer disguise the truth from himself, it was the society of Joan that he desired; and of Joan he had seen less and less during the last fortnight. Neither she nor anybody else had said anything to that effect, but he was convinced that she was being kept out of his way. Why should she be kept out of his way? A guilty conscience gave him the answer readily enough: because it was not desirable that they should remain upon terms of such intimacy. Alas! it was so. He had fought against the fact, ridiculing and denying it up to this very hour, but now that fact had become too strong for him, and as he sat a prey to loneliness and uncomfortable thoughts, he was fain to acknowledge before the tribunal of his own heart that, if he was not in love with Joan, he did not know what was the matter with him. At the least it had come to this: her presence seemed necessary to him, and the prospective pain of parting from her absolutely intolerable.
It is not too much to say that this revelation of his sad plight dismayed Henry. For a moment, indeed, his faculties and judgment were paralysed. To begin with, for him it was a new experience, and therefore the more dangerous and crushing. If this were not a mere momentary madness, and if the girl cared for him as it would appear that he cared for her, what could be the issue? He had no great regard for the prejudice and conventions of caste, but, circumstanced as he was, it seemed absolutely impossible that he should marry her. Had he been independent, provided always that she did care for him, he would have done it gladly enough. But he was not independent, and such an act would mean the utter ruin of his family. More, indeed: if he could bring himself to sacrifice them, he had now no profession and no income. And how would a man hampered and dragged down by a glaring mésalliance be able to find fresh employment by means of which he could support a wife?
No, there was an end of it. The thing could not possibly be done. What, then, was the alternative? Clearly one only. To go, and at once. Some men so placed might have found a third solution, but Henry did not belong to this class. His character and sense of right rebelled against any such notion, and the habits of self-restraint in which he had trained himself for years afforded what he believed to be an impregnable rampart, however frail might be the citadel within.
So thought Henry, who as yet had never matched himself in earnest in such a war. There he sat, strong in his rectitude and consciousness of virtue, however much his heart might ache, making mental preparations for his departure on the morrow, till at last he grew tired of them, and found himself wishing that Joan would come to help him to get ready.
He was lying with his back to the door on a sofa placed between the bed and the wide hearth, upon which a small fire had been lighted, for the night was damp and chilly; and just as this last vagrant wish flitted through his mind, a sound attracted his attention, and he turned to discover that it had been realized as swiftly as though he were the owner of Aladdin’s lamp. For there, the candle still in her hand, stood Joan, looking at him from the farther side of the hearth.
It has been said that she was struck by her own appearance as she passed towards his room; and that the change she saw in herself cannot have been altogether fancy is evident from the exclamation which burst from Henry as his eyes fell upon her, an exclamation so involuntary that he scarcely knew what he was saying until the words had passed his lips:
“Great Heaven! Joan, how lovely you are to-night! What have you been doing to yourself?”
Next second he could have bitten out his tongue: he had hardly ever paid her a compliment before, and this was the moment that he had chosen to begin! His only excuse was that he could not help himself; the sudden effect of her beauty, which was so strangely transfigured, had drawn the words from him as the sun draws mist.
“Am I?” she asked dreamily; “I am glad if it pleases you.”
Here was a strange beginning to his pending announcement of departure, thought Henry. Clearly, he must recover the situation before he made it.