CHAPTER VI.
UNAWARES.
‘What’s this thought,
Shapeless and shadowy, that keeps flitting round
Like some dumb creature that sees coming danger,
And breaks its heart, trying in vain to speak?’
Perhaps Sara Ford was the solitary person who never gave a thought as to why Rudolf Falkenberg paid so long a visit to the Wilhelmis’. Everyone else, from Frau Goldmark upwards, had arrived at the same conclusion, and felt a just and honourable pride in his own astuteness—the conclusion that Herr Falkenberg was what is euphoniously called, ‘paying attention’ to Miss Ford. He knew the report well himself, and knowing that to the principal person concerned—herself—it was as if it had not been, and not caring a straw what was said or thought about him, he took no trouble to enlighten anyone on the subject. He came and went like an old friend in and out of Sara’s presence. He was perfectly certain that Jerome Wellfield was kept fully informed of all that was said and done in their interviews, and that being so, he felt that he had no other person to account to for his action in the matter. And he knew that his presence invigorated and did her good. She had cast aside all her dreamy fancies, and had gone humbly to Nature, as he had bidden her do, and Nature had not betrayed ‘the heart that loved her.’ Sara had made some studies, on seeing which, Wilhelmi, all unconscious of what had gone before, had drawn a long breath of relief, saying, ‘ Was, Kind! You are again coming to your senses.’ Falkenberg had not frowned, if he had not smiled at them; he had said:
‘So you have laid hold of the clue at last, which leads back to the narrow path?’
‘I shall never rest,’ said Sara, cheerfully, ‘until I have done something which you will not scorn to hang up somewhere near the roof of your picture-gallery. Then I shall feel sure that I not only have the clue, but am back on the stony road again.’
‘Some day you will do something which the world will not allow to be buried in any picture-gallery of mine. Patience, patience, and ever patience!’
It was the morning after they had held this conversation. Sara and Avice were seated at breakfast.