“You are very much surprised to see me, Miss Vincent,” the lawyer said, holding out his hand.
The girl put her hand loosely in his, and Gilbert Monckton started as he felt the feverish heat of the slim fingers that touched his so lightly. He looked into Eleanor’s face. The excitement of the last three days had left its traces on her countenance.
Mrs. Darrell had made a confidant of the lawyer. It had been absolutely necessary to explain Eleanor’s absence. Mrs. Darrell had given her own version of the business, telling the truth, with sundry reservations. Miss Vincent was a handsome and agreeable girl, she said; it was of vital consequence to Launcelot that he should not form any attachment or entertain any passing fancy, that might militate against his future prospects. An imprudent marriage had alienated her, Mrs. Darrell, from her uncle, Maurice de Crespigny. An imprudent marriage might ruin the young man’s chance of inheriting the Woodlands estate. Under these circumstances it was advisable that Miss Vincent should leave Hazlewood; and the young lady had very generously resigned her situation upon the matter being put before her in a proper light.
Mrs. Darrell took very good care not to make any allusion to that declaration of love which she had overheard through the half-open door of her son’s painting-room.
Mr. Monckton had expressed no little vexation at the sudden departure of his ward’s companion; but his annoyance was of course felt solely on account of Miss Mason, who told him, with her eyes streaming, and her voice half-choked with sobs, that she could never be happy without her darling Eleanor.
The lawyer said very little in reply to these lamentations, but took care to get Miss Vincent’s address from his ward, and on the day after his visit to Hazlewood went straight from his office to the Pilasters.
Looking at the change in Eleanor Vane’s face, Mr. Monckton, began to wonder very seriously if the departure from Hazlewood had been a matter of indifference to her; and whether it might not be that Mrs. Darrell’s alarms about her son’s possible admiration for the penniless companion were founded on stronger grounds than the widow had cared to reveal to him.
“I was afraid that Laura’s frivolous fancy might be caught by this young fellow,” he thought, “but I could never have believed that this girl, who has ten times Laura’s intellect, would fall in love with Launcelot Darrell.”
He thought this, while Eleanor’s feverish hand lay, loose and passive, in his own.
“It was not quite kind of you to leave Hazlewood without seeing me, or consulting me, Miss Vincent,” he said: “you must remember that I confided to you a trust.”