"You are unjust to him, Allan, in your grief and anger. Whatever his feelings may have been, he has fought against them. He has made himself almost an exile from this house."
"He has been biding his time, no doubt; and now that I have had the coup de grace he will come back."
CHAPTER XII.
"THAT WAY MADNESS LIES."
It would have taken a very respectable earthquake to have made as much sensation in a rural neighbourhood as was made in the village and neighbourhood of Matcham by the cancelment of Allan Carew's engagement to General Vincent's daughter. The fact that no visitors had been bidden to the wedding seemed to make no difference in the rapid dissemination of the news. People from twenty miles round had been interested; people from twenty miles round had come up to be taxed, and had sent pepper-pots and hair-brushes, paper-knives and scent-bottles, fans and candlesticks—all of which were now returned to the givers in the very tissue paper and cardboard boxes in which they had been sent from shops or stores, accompanied by a formal little note of apology. The marriage had been deferred indefinitely; and, at his daughter's request, General Vincent begged to return the gifts, with best thanks for the kindly feeling which had prompted, etc.
"It will do for some one else!"
That was the almost inevitable exclamation when the tissue paper was unfolded and the gift appeared, untarnished and undamaged by the double transit. Then followed speculations as to the meaning of those words, "deferred indefinitely."
"Indefinitely means never," pronounced Mrs. Roebuck; "there's no doubt upon that point. He has jilted her. I thought he would begin to look about him after his father's death. I dare say he will have a house in town next season—a pied à terre near Park Lane—and go into society, instead of vegetating among those Bœotians. He must feel himself thrown away in such a hole."
"I thought he was devoted to Miss Vincent."
"Nonsense! How could any man be devoted to an insignificant Frenchified chit without style or savoir farie?"