“But, after all,” thought Betty, when in these twilight walks she glanced toward the pile of Rosehill, mute and dark and uninhabited, “it could not have been. How is it possible that I, Betty Beverley, should ever be the mistress of Rosehill, and have Grandfather with me and be the wife of Fortescue? No, it was too much. The gods are none too generous. I had a treasure in the hollow of my hand, and I threw it away. I shall not have it again.”
A subtle change came over Betty’s look and manner. She was as brave as ever, but instead of the daring light in her eyes and the joyous laughter on her lips, were the calm courage of endurance and a softness and gentleness greater than she had ever before known. She spent every hour that was possible with the Colonel, sitting by him with her sewing—for Betty did all her own sewing—or reading to him, or playing and singing to him; and to all in the little house, from the Colonel down to little black Kettle, Betty was their light and strength, their guardian angel. Life had turned its stern face upon her, and Betty was learning bravely and quietly the meaning of that sternness.
CHAPTER XXI
RECOMPENCE
The summer slipped into the autumn, and the gold and brown and crimson October days, with twilight skies of amethyst and pearl, were at hand. Betty’s hours were very full. The Colonel was growing daily more feeble, but his indomitable eyes reflected an unquenchable spirit. Only, he was gentler, tenderer, graver. As the year grew old, and the swallows flew southward, and the cry of the wild geese clanged in the blue air, a note of sadness seemed brooding upon the world. Betty was a softer, quieter Betty than she had ever been, and there was a poignant sweetness in her smile and in her eyes, which sometimes held unshed tears. But it was ever a brave Betty. Her smiles were for the Colonel, and the faithful servants, and poor little Kettle. Her tears were for the few solitary hours she could command. These hours were when she lay in her little white bed at night, wakeful, and a scant half-hour at twilight, when she could walk up and down the garden path, by the box hedge. And her thoughts were all of Fortescue, and her heart, poor prisoner that it was, beat against the bars of fate and uttered its mournful and passionate cry.
And so the autumn passed slowly.
One afternoon in late October, Betty, happening to glance through her window toward Rosehill, saw the shutters thrown wide, and the blue smoke curling out of the chimneys. She started and trembled; it was as if a finger had been laid upon an exposed nerve, and she said to herself:
“I will not let anything that happens at Rosehill affect me. I will not let myself dream or wish,” a thing easier said than done.