"I shouldn't wonder!" and the old woman nodded sagaciously—"Let her sleep on it, lad!—an' you sleep on it, too!—The storm's nigh over—an' mebbe our dark cloud 'as a silver lining!"
Half-an-hour later on she went to her own bed—and on the way thought she would peep into Innocent's room and see how she fared—but the door was locked. Vexed at her own lack of foresight in not possessing herself of the key before the girl had been carried to her room, she left her own door open that she might be ready in case of any call—and for a long time she lay awake watchfully, thinking and wondering what the next day would bring forth—till at last anxiety and bewilderment of mind were overcome by sheer fatigue and she slept. Not so Robin Clifford. Excited and full of new hope which he hardly dared breathe to himself, he made no attempt to rest—but paced his room up and down, up and down, like a restless animal in a cage, waiting with hardly endurable impatience for the dawn. Thoughts chased each other in his brain too quickly to evolve any practical order out of them,—he tried to plan out what he would do with the coming day—how he would let the farm people know that Innocent had returned—how he would send a telegram to her friend Miss Leigh in London to say she was safe in her old home—and then the recollection of her literary success swept over his mind like a sort of cloud—her fame!—the celebrity she had won in that wider world outside Briar Farm—was it fair or honest to her that he should take advantage of her weak and half-distraught condition and allow her to become his wife?—she, whose genius was already acknowledged by a wide and discerning public, and who might be considered as only at the beginning of a brilliant and prosperous career?
"For, after all, I am only a farmer," he said—"And with the friends she has made for herself she might marry any one! The best way for me will be to give her time—time to recover from this—this terrible trouble she seems to have on her mind—this curse of that fancy for Amadis de Jocelyn!—by Heaven, I'd kill him without a minute's grace if I had him in my power!"
Still pacing to and fro and thinking, he wore the slow hours away, and at last the grey peep of a misty, silvery dawn peered through his window. He threw the lattice open and leaned out—the scent of the wet fields and trees after the night's storm was sweet and refreshing, and copied his heated blood. He reviewed the whole situation with greater calmness,—and decided that he must not be selfish enough to grasp at the proffered joy of marriage with the only woman he had ever loved unless he could be made sure that it would be for her own happiness.
"Just now she hardly knows what she is saying or doing," he mused, sadly—"Some great disappointment has broken her spirit and she is wounded and in pain,—but when she is quite herself and has mastered her grief, she will see things in a different light—she will realise the fame she has won,—the brilliant name she has made—yes!—she must think of all this—she must not wrong herself or injure her position by marrying me!"
The silver-grey dawn brightened steadily, and in the eastern sky long folds of silky mist began to shred away in thin strips of delicate vapour showing peeps of pale amber between,—fitful touches of faint rose-colour flitted here and there against the gold,—and with a sense of relief that the day was at last breaking and that the sky showed promise of the sun, he left his room, and stepping noiselessly into the outside corridor, listened. Priscilla's door was wide open—and as he passed he looked in,—she was fast asleep. He could not hear a sound,—and though he walked on cautious tip-toe along the little passage which led to the room where Innocent slept and waited there a minute or two, straining his ears for any little sigh, or sob, or whisper, none came;—all was silent. Quietly he went downstairs, and, opening the hall door, stepped out into the garden. Every shrub and plant was dripping with wet—many were beaten down and broken by the fury of the night's storm, and there was more desolation than beauty in the usually well-ordered and carefully-tended garden. The confusion of fallen flowers and trailing stems made a melancholy impression on his mind,—at another time he would scarcely have heeded what was, after all, only the natural havoc wrought by high winds and heavy rains,—but this morning there seemed to be more than the usual ruin. He walked slowly round to the front of the house—and there looked up at the projecting lattice window of Innocent's room. It was wide open. Surprised, he stopped underneath it and looked up, half expecting to see her,—but only a filmy white curtain moved gently with the first stirrings of the morning air. He stood a moment or two irresolute, recalling the night when he had climbed up by the natural ladder of the old wistaria and had heard her tell the plaintive little story of her "base-born" condition, with tears in her eyes, and the pale moonshine lighting up her face like the face of an angel in a dream.
"And she had written her first book already then!" he thought—"She had all that genius in her and I never knew!"
A deeper brightness in the sky began to glow, and a light spread itself over the land—the sun was rising. He looked towards the low hills in the east, and saw the golden rim lifting itself like the edge of a cup above the horizon,—and as it ascended higher and higher, some fleecy white clouds rolled softly away from its glittering splendour, showing glimpses of tenderest ethereal blue. A still and solemn beauty invested all the visible scene,—a sacred peace—the peace of an obedient and law-abiding nature wherein man alone creates strange discord. Robin looked long and lovingly at the fair prospect,-the wide meadows, the stately trees warmly tinted with autumnal glory, and thought—
"Could she be happier than here?—safe in the arms of love?—safe and sheltered from all trouble in the home she once idolised?"
He would not answer his own inward query—and suddenly the fancy seized him to call her by name, as he had called her on that moonlit night long ago, and persuade her to look out on the familiar fields shining in the sunlight of the morning.