The stout, prosperous tradesman looked pinched and miserable as he told his sorry tale; while the young man sat opposite to him, his face turning very white, his strong hands shaking, and his mighty figure trembling all over, like a leaf in the wind. The sun was shining outside, though not into the room; one could see its glare in the yellow hue of the grass, and the shadows cast by the trees. The sound of singing birds came in at the open window, and also a blast of north-east wind, cold, dry, cutting as a knife.
‘She does not mean it, Mr. Dixon; she does not really mean it?’ he stammered, fighting for his life.
‘She means it, Roger. I wrestled with her about it for an hour; for with expecting you to be my son for so long, I’ve got to look upon you as if you were my son. I wrestled with her till I saw she was nigh to fainting, and then I had to stop. She pulled this off her finger, and told me to give it you.’
He pulled a little pearl ring from his pocket, and pushed it across the table towards Roger, without looking at him. Roger picked it up, and turned it round in his fingers as if he did not know what it was—as if the sight of the little jewels dazed him.
‘She said she wished to send no unkind words, for that perhaps she’d never see you again; but that you must not come nigh her, for another scene with you would kill her, and she wants to live.’
‘Let her live then,’ said Roger, in a hoarse and laboured voice. ‘It does not matter what becomes of me.’
Mr. Dixon, sturdy philistine that he was, wiped his eyes with his handkerchief.
‘Roger,’ he said, with a solemnity and strength of conviction which gave dignity and something like majesty to his commonplace, outside man, ‘you have just cause to look upon my girl with suspicion, and to fight shy and speak ill of us all. But, lad, I tell you, we don’t know the end of it all yet. I can tell you, my heart is heavy. There’s a weight on it, as if something uncommon was coming, or hanging about in the air somewhere. I can’t mind my business, nor eat my victuals, for thinking of that girl, that looks like a ghost; and why, that’s what I want to know—why?’
‘I’m afraid,’ said Roger, in a laboured voice, but instinctively trying to give comfort to the man who was older and weaker than himself, ‘that she may have begun to care for some one else, who perhaps doesn’t respond as she could wish. If so, it is best for her to be free from me.’
‘Choose what it is, it’s a heavy trouble for us all,’ said Mr. Dixon, wearily. ‘I’m often afraid that she was brought up with notions far above her station—Miss Wynter, and all that; but somehow, I never took it to be anything seriously wrong.... You’ll not look upon me as an enemy, Roger, for I’ve fought for you through thick and thin?’