Jean turned her face away, and answered, very low, “No one ever was so kind to me as you have been. Can I help caring for you more than I can express?”
Sir John was a little deaf at times, but he heard that, and looked well pleased. He had been rather thoughtful of late, had dressed with unusual care, been particularly gallant and gay when the young ladies visited him, and more than once, when Jean paused in the reading to ask a question, he had been forced to confess that he had not been listening; though, as she well knew, his eyes had been fixed upon her. Since the discovery of her birth, his manner had been peculiarly benignant, and many little acts had proved his interest and goodwill. Now, when Jean spoke of going, a panic seized him, and desolation seemed about to fall upon the old Hall. Something in her unusual agitation struck him as peculiar and excited his curiosity. Never had she seemed so interesting as now, when she sat beside him with tearful eyes, and some soft trouble in her heart which she dared not confess.
“Tell me everything, child, and let your friend help you if he can.” Formerly he said “father” or “the old man,” but lately he always spoke of himself as her “friend.”
“I will tell you, for I have no one else to turn to. I must go away because Mr. Coventry has been weak enough to love me.”
“What, Gerald?” cried Sir John, amazed.
“Yes; today he told me this, and left me to break with Lucia; so I ran to you to help me prevent him from disappointing his mother’s hopes and plans.”
Sir John had started up and paced down the room, but as Jean paused he turned toward her, saying, with an altered face, “Then you do not love him? Is it possible?”
“No, I do not love him,” she answered promptly.
“Yet he is all that women usually find attractive. How is it that you have escaped, Jean?”
“I love someone else” was the scarcely audible reply.