‘I was thinking that he has a way and a look with him that must make it hard for any woman to withstand him, supposing he were making love to her.’
‘And is that all?’ Sara asked, almost indignantly; her heart falling, though she was herself at the moment so strongly under the influence of that ‘way’ and that ‘look’—though he had been making love to her, and she had found resistance swept away like a straw down a strong current. ‘Is that all? Ellen, you know you are evading my questions. You know that I want to know whether he looked high-minded and good.’
‘And that is just what I cannot say, my dear. I cannot tell. He looks splendid—I know that. He looks a gentleman, and a very grand gentleman. And I saw nothing to make me think he would not be good. But, since you will know all, Miss Sara, I thought there was a look about his lips, as if he could be cruel on occasion.’
‘Cruel, Ellen? What do you mean?’
‘Nay, don’t look at me in that way, ma’am! You would make me speak, and I’m bound to tell the truth, I don’t mean that he looked as if he would hurt an animal, or wilfully torment anything, but he looked to me as if, supposing he was hard pressed, for instance, he could be cruel, and unscrupulous—as if he would gain his end, choose what he had to do to get to it.’
‘Oh,’ said Sara, with a somewhat nervous laugh, ‘you mean that he has a very strong will. I hope indeed that he has, Ellen, for he will need it, I assure you.’
‘Then I am very glad he is determined,’ answered Ellen, briskly, as if anxious to have the subject disposed of. And Sara did not resume it, but she was that night in no humour for either work or play. She sat in her easy-chair beside the table on which stood her lamp, and thought and pondered until her brain seemed to ache.
Where was he now? How far advanced on his dreary way to England and Manchester? She knew nothing of the north of England. She only knew that Wellfield, where his lost home was, was in the north-east corner of the great manufacturing county, and that (so he had told her) it was a lovely and fertile spot, surrounded on one side by bleak Yorkshire moors, and on others by great grimy manufacturing towns. Of course she had heard of the north of England towns, had met people who came from them, had passed through some of them years ago, on her way to Scotland with her father; but all that region was a great unknown land to her, with, as it seemed, the one exception of Wellfield, which she had found upon an ordnance map, and had pictured in her heart, until it took up a great space in her imagination; and for her ‘the north’ as applied to England, meant Wellfield. A ridiculous mental position no doubt, but one not entirely without precedent.
Well, she thought, he would soon be there. He had told her he intended to go to see the old place once again. Mr. Bolton, the new owner, would not be so churlish as to refuse him that grace. And he had promised to write and tell her about it.
‘Cruel?’ she thought, reflecting upon Ellen’s words. ‘I suppose that means resolute. People sometimes have to be almost cruel. It is often apparent cruelty which is really the greatest kindness. Jerome could be most determined, I am certain. I have noticed a change myself, since—since his trouble. I daresay he could even be what Ellen would imagine cruel; but if so, it would be because he thought it right.’