Eleanor was very thoughtful about this. She seemed to see Magdalen—and yet she could not believe that it would ever be so—growing into one of those women whose lives are all behind them; gradually becoming old and more stately, more monumental, as the years went by; so that at last no one would imagine, to look at her, that she had been the centre of such passions as she had caused, or moved in; so that no one but herself and a few others, grown old with her, would know how hotly her heart had beaten, at the same time that other old hearts had throbbed, which with time had grown chill.
And at this time, at the end of March, a change took place in the circumstances of all, and the marriage which Eleanor had grown so anxious for, took place—but not until a little later, in April.
Gilbert wrote to Michael, and said that he and Otho were coming to Thorsgarth; that Otho’s affairs were now in such a state that something must be done about them. He had, it would seem, run his course, and it was necessary to see what could be retrieved in his estate. They were, of course, coming very quietly, and would stay as short a time as possible, bringing the solicitor of the Askam family with them, as there were certain papers at Thorsgarth which it was necessary to overhaul. He wished Eleanor to know this, as Otho was still in his cowed and subdued state, and ready to go through the marriage with Ada, if she could be persuaded to it.
Eleanor waited till she had heard that they had actually arrived at Thorsgarth, and then shut herself up with Ada, and combated her objections in such wise, and placed the matter in such a light, that Ada at last exclaimed—
‘Very well! Give me peace! Since you say it will do so much good, let us try it.’
The words haunted her hearer for some time, but she felt that her purpose was genuine. Some of the reproach would be wiped away, and the future of the child would at any rate be rendered somewhat more hopeful. She at once communicated with Gilbert and Mr. Johnson, and a special license having been procured, Otho Askam and Ada Dixon were made man and wife, in the drawing-room of the Dower House, one showery April morning. Eleanor noticed how, during the service there was a violent shower of rain, which beat against the pane, while the sunlight fell on the trees in the square outside, and how, at the sound of the falling water, Ada lifted her face to the window, and looked with a strange look towards the sky.
Eleanor found her eyes dragged towards Otho, by a power stronger than her own will. She was struck with the change in him. He had grown old-looking: his shoulders were bowed; his head drooped. He glanced from one to the other of them, with a shifty, cowed expression; and his eyes every now and then wandered towards Ada, who was perhaps the only person in the room who neither saw nor looked at him. When it was over, and Gilbert, who had been at his side through it all, took his arm to lead him away, he wiped the sweat from his brow, and looked all about him, and at Gilbert, and at Ada, with a white, scared face, and moved uncertainly, as if he could not see.
When every one had gone, except Mr. Dixon, Eleanor went to Ada, stooped over her chair, and said—
‘Now, Ada, the worst is over. You may have something to live for yet.’
Ada looked at her with one of those prolonged, vacant gazes, which seemed to Eleanor to come from somewhere far on the other side of the tomb, and shaking her head, merely replied—