"Oh, it's an open secret," pursued Dick. "You ask Philip. Ask uncle or aunt Martin. Ask Dorothy. Ask Andrew Goldsmith. Everybody would say they knew it, except you, dear old father."
"No, your uncle and aunt do not know," he replied in a tone of deep depression and sadness. It seemed an unpardonable treachery that these two should have entered into an engagement without asking the consent of their parents. This base blow had been struck at Sidney in his home, and by those that were dear to him. "A man's foes shall be they of his own household," he said bitterly to himself, as he sat alone in his study, after leaving all the members of his family in a state of dismay and amazement. Philip came to him by and by, having been summoned by Phyllis, and declared that he had never thought of keeping his love a secret; that he was only waiting till he was of age to speak openly of it to his father and mother; and that he did not for a moment anticipate anything like disapproval from either of them. The rector was too unhappy to take courage or comfort. But he could not be shaken in his resolution that Phyllis should not join the party going north.
Philip's coming of age was to be celebrated merely by a gathering of the tenants at Brackenburn Manor, a festivity which could not have taken place at all but for the death of Mr. Churchill, an event which had left the old house at Sidney's disposal. They were strangers on their own estate, and had, therefore, no friendly neighbors to gather about them. Now that the rector so firmly refused all invitations, except for his sons, there was a small party only going northward. Oddly enough, Sidney invited Andrew Goldsmith to accompany them. It was a sudden impulse and freak for which he could not account to himself. Rachel Goldsmith was accompanying Margaret, as she still held the nominal post of her maid, and it did not seem altogether out of place to ask her brother Andrew.
"It'll be a rare treat to me," said the old saddler, "for I've loved Mr. Philip, as if he'd been my own flesh and blood, ever since my lady brought him to my house as a little babe. Ah! if he'd been Sophy's boy I couldn't have loved him more."
It was years since Sidney had heard Sophy's name; for, naturally, as time went on, the memory of her, and of her strange disappearance and silence, had withdrawn into the background of life, and only two or three hearts, that had been stricken sorely by her loss, kept her in remembrance. They had no hope now of finding her; but no day passed in which her father and Rachel did not think of her, and still wonder, with sad bewilderment, what could have become of her.
It was early in December: the few leaves left in the topmost branches of the trees were brown and sere. The wide moors rising behind Brackenburn were brown too, but there were purple and gray tints on them—dun, soft tints that looked very beautiful under the low sky and slowly drifting clouds. To Dorothy it was an unmingled pleasure to revisit, in this manner, her birthplace, and to see its empty rooms peopled by all those she had learned to love. The old familiar house, with its latticed windows shining through the luxuriant tendrils of ivy, which Sidney had left untrained, was quite unchanged; but when she entered through the broad porch into the large old hall, she uttered a cry of delight. It was a transformed and brilliant place; not the bare, barnlike entrance she remembered. Soft skins and rugs lay on the oak floor, and a large fire burned in the wide old chimney, which had always looked to her, when a child, like the mouth of a black cavern. On each side of the broad and shallow staircase there stood flowering plants on every step. The place was the same; yet, oh, how different! A rich color came into her face, and her dark eyes glowed with happy excitement. Margaret was tired, and Dorothy, feeling almost like mistress and hostess in her old home, conducted her to her room, where Rachel was awaiting her lady's arrival.
Margaret was not in her usual health and spirits. There was always mingled with her joy in Philip's birth, the memory of her father's death the day afterward, and the solemn recollection of her own strange experience of dying, as if she had actually passed out of this world, and been sent back to it. Life had never been to her, since that memorable time, the commonplace existence of her mere physical or intellectual being. She had lived more by the soul than by the mind or the body. These lower forms of life had possessed their fullness for her. She had enjoyed the perfect health of her physical nature, with all the rich pleasures coming through the senses, and she had in a greater measure taken delight in intellectual pursuits. But, pre-eminently, she had lived in the spirit, and just now her spirit was overshadowed. There was a conflict coming near from which it shrank.
She was troubled about Phyllis. The girl was dear to her from old associations and the intimacy of a lifetime; but she could not think of her as Philip's wife. No word had been spoken to her yet about this subject; but it had been in the air for the last fortnight, and she could not be unconscious of it. She had guessed the reason of the rector's firm resolution of not coming to Brackenburn, and not letting Laura and Phyllis come. Sidney had not spoken of it; but she thought he was troubled. But the most disquieting symptom of a coming storm was that Philip kept silence, even to her. He never mentioned Phyllis; but he was absent and low-spirited. This was the first sorrow, the first shadow of a cloud, coming over Margaret from her relationship with her husband and her son. Until now she had been able to speak as she thought before them, with quiet, unrestrained freedom. But there had sprung up, during the last few days, a novel feeling of restraint and embarrassment. Neither Sidney nor Philip uttered the name of Phyllis.
After Dorothy had seen Margaret comfortably established in her room, she stole quietly and quickly out of the house, and hastened on to the moors. There was yet half an hour of the short December day, and she could not wait for the morrow. At the first low knoll she turned round to look back upon the old Manor House, with its picturesque gables and large stacks of chimneys. She knew now better than she used to do how very beautiful it was. The sun was setting, and the low light shone full upon the small diamond panes of the many windows, and cast deep shadows from the eaves, and brought into stronger relief the antique carvings on the heavy beams of oak. She felt proud of the place—as proud as if it had been her own.
"Why did you never tell us how pretty it was?" asked Philip's voice; and turning round, she saw him coming up to her over the soundless turf.