To my chagrin, I saw that I was unsuccessful. She seemed to labour under some exciting emotion; and I could not help fancying that it was of a painful character.
Her whole behaviour was a mystery to me, because so different from what it had formerly been, or what I had hoped to find it.
I had left Lenore when she was but little more than a child, and she was now a young lady.
In the three years that had intervened, there was reason for me to expect some change in her character. With her mother, no change I presumed could have taken place. I left Mrs Hyland a woman; and such I should find her, only three years older. In her I expected to meet a friend, as I had left her. She entered the room. I was again doomed to disappointment!
She received me with even more coldness than had been exhibited by Lenore. She did not even offer me her hand; but took a seat, and with a more unpleasant expression than I had ever before observed on her face, she waited apparently with impatience for what I might have to say.
The sensitive feelings of my soul had never been so cruelly wounded. I was in an agony of anger and disappointment; and unable any longer to endure the painful excitement of my emotions, I uttered a few common-place speeches, and hastily withdrew from their presence.
What could their conduct mean? In the excited state of my thoughts, I was unable to form even a conjecture, that seemed in any way consistent with my knowledge of their previous character.
It might be that when Lenore was a child, and I was a boy, they had seen no harm in befriending and being kind to me; but now that Lenore was a young lady, and I a man—a sailor, too—they might have reasons for not having any further acquaintance with me.
Could it be that they were endued with that selfishness—in this world possessed by so many? That they had been my friends only because Captain Hyland was my protector—to fall away from me now, that his protection could be no longer extended to me?
I could hardly think this possible: for it would be so much out of keeping with all that I had ever known of the character either of Mrs Hyland or her daughter.