One morning, while she was painting, her aunt observed, in her usual tone of voice, scarce lifting her eyes from the paper, "Mr. Villiers did not tell us this—he is going to be married; I wonder who to!"
"Married!" repeated Ethel.
"Yes, my dear, here it is. 'We hear from good authority that Mr. Villiers, of Chiverton Park, is about to lead to the hymeneal altar a young and lovely bride, the only child of a gentleman, said to be the richest commoner in England.'—Who can it be?"
Ethel did not reply, and the elder lady went on to other parts of the newspaper. The poor girl, on whom she had dealt all unaware this chance mortal blow, put down her brush, and hurried into the shrubbery to conceal her agitation. Why did she feel these sharp pangs? Why did a bitter deluge of anguish overflow and seem to choke her breathing, and torture her heart?—she could scarcely tell. "Married!—then I shall never see him more!" And a passion of tears, not refreshing, but forced out by agony, and causing her to feel as if her heart was bursting, shook her delicate frame. At that moment the well-known sound, the galloping of Villiers's horse up the lane, met her ear. "Does he come here to tell us at last of his wedding-day?" The horse came on—it stopped—the bell was rung. Little acts these, which she had watched for, and listened to, for two months, with such placid and innocent delight, now they seemed the notes of preparation for a scene of despair. She wished to retreat to her own room to compose herself; but it was too late; he was already in that through which she must pass—she heard his voice speaking to her aunt. "Now is he telling her," she thought. No idea of reproach, or of accusation of unkindness in him, dawned on her heart. No word of love had passed between them—even yet she was unaware that she loved herself; it was the instinctive result of this despot sentiment, which exerted its sway over her, without her being conscious of the cause of her sufferings.
The first words of Mrs. Fitzhenry had been to speak of the paragraph in the newspaper, and to show it her visitor. Villiers read it, and considered it curiously. He saw at once, that however blunderingly worded, his father was its hero; and he wondered what foundation there might be for the rumour. "Singular enough!" he said, carelessly, as he put the paper down.
"You have kept your secret well," said Mrs. Elizabeth.
"My secret! I did not even know that I had one."
"I, at least, never heard that you were going to be married."
"I!—married! Where is Miss Fitzhenry?"
The concatenation of ideas presented by these words fell unremarked on the blunt senses of the good lady, and she replied, "In the shrubbery, I believe, or upstairs: she left me but a moment ago."