With that he seemed to consider the subject at an end. Roger knew quite well that what Michael meant was, that he repented him bitterly of his incautious promise to set foot again within Thorsgarth, and that in speaking about it, he had had one lingering wish that Roger might say, ‘Don’t go. Say you can’t, or won’t.’ But Roger had not been able to say that, and if he had, Michael would not have been able to act upon it. The thing was settled. He was to go.
All the following day he went about his business and his work, seemingly just as usual. But behind all his occupations he had constantly before his mind’s eye the scene of the previous evening—a sepia-tinted landscape, a picture all in neutral hues, behind whose grayness he could feel a warmth and a glow which thrilled him. He saw again the darkling sky and fields, heard the roaring of the swollen Balder, and then the measured clank of their horses’ hoofs through the streets and along the frosty roads. And when this recollection faded for a time, it was replaced by that of their parting—the tired voice, the earnest request, the promised, ‘I will not keep you long,’ the sweet burden held for one moment in his arms, and the door closed between them when she went in.
‘Pooh! What folly. I shall not give way to any such nonsense. Otho Askam—Otho is her brother. Magdalen—Gilbert—what part or lot have I with them? She has some crotchet in her head. I would not be unkind to her, but I will make no more promises. I shall give her to understand that.’
It was a powerful and an honest resolution, and came from the very depths of Michael’s convictions on the subject of his own relations with these persons who had once, years ago, played so important a part in his life.
Directly after four o’clock, he found himself walking up the Thorsgarth avenue, and, as he went, he could not but remember, mistily at first, how he and those three other boys had once made that now so mournful aisle ring with their shouts of mirth and delight. ‘The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts,’ and as he walked on and emerged in the open space before the house, the dimness vanished, and there came, glowing and sunshiny as at the time, athwart all the frost and grayness of the present, the vivid recollection of those summer days, when he had seen this same girl on whom he was now going to call, led by her nurse’s hand, or by that of the proud young beauty, her mother, pacing the terraces, and he, a boy of twelve, had lain upon the river-bank, and dreamed his dreams, lulled half to sleep by the warmth of the sunshine and the murmur of the stream.
Then, almost before he had adjusted his mind to this recollection it seemed, he heard his name announced to her and stood before her, in a sombre room on the ground-floor—the library.
Eleanor, who was pale and tired, as he saw when he entered, rose from a chair by the fire, and offered him her hand, a slow, deep blush spreading itself over her whole face. But she betrayed no embarrassment of speech or manner. She looked grave, sad, composed.
‘It is kind of you to come, just because I asked you,’ said she, as they both sat down.
‘There is no kindness in that,’ said Michael, beginning to measure his words, in pursuance of his resolution. ‘You said you wished to speak to me, or to ask me something—I forget which,—and of course I came. Equally of course, you may find me the most ignorant or silent of men, before I leave you.’
‘I know you are not ignorant on the points as to which I wish for information. But you may very easily choose to be silent,’ answered Eleanor.