‘She’s dull. Girls must have some outlet for their feelings. It’s better to sentimentalise in a diary than with a curate. I’d rather she sat up late scribbling, than rose at cockcrow to get cold at “early celebrations,” and all that rubbish—eh, Jack?’
To which ‘Jack’ always and devoutly yielded his assent.
Nita, on this particular occasion, had more and darker reflections to make than usual, upon the dark and tortuous ways of ‘Destiny.’ Such effusions might be the result of a mere surface feeling, or they might be the indications of some deeper, more tragic emotion. Who was to say? Nita herself less than anyone.
‘I never,’ she wrote, ‘never before saw, or imagined anyone in the least like him. It was like seeing a new kind of creature.’
Then there was a long pause, as she laid her pen down, folded her hands, and pondered. Then she took up her pen again and wrote:
‘He may well look sad and melancholy, and gaze sorrowfully on the scene around him. He may well look long and gravely at me when he speaks to me. Only quite a short time ago, he supposed himself the heir to all this place, and now he is dispossessed, and it is I who shall sometime have it! What romances there are in the world, far wilder romances than one reads of in books. How will it all end? What hand has brought us together in this strange manner—I and he, of all persons in the world? This is indeed one of those dark mazes of life through which one must wander on trust—one can know nothing.’
Having written thus far, Nita carefully read over the chronicle, closed and locked the book, and put it away. Then, starting with a sudden movement, she ran to the window, opened it and leaned out, looking forth upon the moonlight. To a romantic mind and one given to sentimental musings, Wellfield Abbey must have been provocative of much moon-gazing and many reveries. Nita Bolton was romantic, was sentimental, in no small degree, though these qualities had been well kept in check by the healthy and natural though quiet life which she had lived, and by the perpetual shafts of satire directed against all sentiment by her three associates—her father, her Aunt Margery, and her cousin, John Leyburn. But the tendency to weaving romance out of her surroundings, if they would by any means allow it, was there, powerful, though dormant. The fire smouldered. It needed but a spark to kindle it. The sudden appearance of Jerome Wellfield supplied that spark. Nita’s innate love of sentiment and romance was aroused. It appeared as if life suddenly contained a new, fresh interest. It was long before the girl undressed, and then it was long before she slept. At last slumber came, and dreams in which Wellfield had no part.
