“Not once. When I have ridden over it has been to see your mother, and I don’t care to leave Miggles for long at a time. Besides, I think I shirked it. It was winter, and the trees were bare, and I was alone, and it is difficult to be very happy all by oneself, and sometimes I was in a contrary mood, when I did not even want to try. But I am glad to be here to-day. I am glad you brought me.”
“I must bring you again. I must come down oftener. As you are giving up your life to help Miggles, it is the duty of all her friends to make things as easy as possible. I shall feel that Seacliff has a double claim on me if I can help you as well as my mother. It will be good for us both to come here and be compelled towards happiness.”
Vanna’s smile of acknowledgment was somewhat forced. It would have been unmixed joy to look forward to the promised visits, but for those two words which stood out in such jarring prominence that they seemed to obscure her joy. “Duty,” “Claim.” When in the history of woman did she appreciate a service thus offered by a member of the opposite sex?
“That is very kind of you,” she answered formally. “After the excitements of London, Seacliff must seem very dull at this time of year. How long are you going to stay this time?”
“Until—” he hesitated for a moment—“until Monday.”
That evening, when Vanna went up to her own room, she sat for an hour beside her little window facing the bay, living over again the events of the day.
Duty! Claim! For the hundredth time the words tolled in her ears. She looked over the grey waste of waters and saw in them a type of her own colourless life. Duty! Claim! But then the scene shifted. She was back again in the library of the Manor House, listening to old Mrs Rendall’s words of lament. “He is no sooner here than he has gone. He tells me he must positively leave on Friday.” Why had Piers elected to stay on? She was back again in the dining-room, feeling his gaze upon her—a gaze so deep, so pregnant with meaning that it had forced the question from her lips, “What is it? What are you thinking about?”
“You! Here! In this house. The difference it makes—the astounding difference—”
What difference was it which her presence made? His eyes told her that it was a difference of gain.
A twinkling light shone out on the darkness, flashed and waned, flashed again into brighter glow. The waste of waters was illumined with light.