“I will, my dear,” Mr. Thornton answered. “I do promise, and I will keep my promise honestly if ever the chance of doing so should come to me. But I must tell you frankly, Nell, I don’t believe it ever will.”
“Bless you for the promise, notwithstanding, Richard,” Eleanor said, warmly. “It has made me much happier. There will be two people henceforth, instead of one, set against this man.”
A dark frown overshadowed her face. It seemed as if she had uttered those last few words in the form of a threat and a defiance, which the man, whoever he was, and wherever he was, might hear.
“You know all the strange things they say now about second-sight, clairvoyance, odic force, magnetic attraction—all sorts of long words whose meaning I don’t understand, Richard. I wonder sometimes if this man knows that I hate him, and that I am watching for him, thinking of him, praying to meet him day and night. Perhaps he does know this, and will hold himself on his guard against me, and try and avoid me.”
Richard shrank from entering upon this subject; the conversation had been altogether disagreeable to him. There was a horrible discrepancy between this girl’s innocent youthful beauty and all this determined talk of fierce and eager vengeance, which would have been more natural to a Highland or Corsican chieftain than to a young lady of seventeen.
It was dark now, and they went back to the Pilasters, where Eliza Picirillo was spending that last night very mournfully. The shabby room was only illumined by the glimmer of a low fire, for the Signora had not cared to light the candles until her two children came home. She had been sitting by the dingy window watching for their return, and had fallen asleep in the darkness.
There is no need to dwell upon that last night. It was like the eves of all partings, very sad, very uncomfortable. Everything was disorganized by that approaching sorrow. Conversation was desultory and forced, and Richard was glad to be employed in cording Eleanor’s boxes. She had two trunks now, and had a wardrobe that seemed to her magnificent, so liberally had Mrs. Bannister bestowed her cast-off dresses upon her half-sister.
So the last night passed away, the April morning came, and Eleanor’s new life began.
CHAPTER XII.
GILBERT MONCKTON.
Eleanor Vane was not to go down to Berkshire alone. The beginning of her new life, that terrible beginning which she so much dreaded, was to make her acquainted with new people.