A Life's Secret: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

'I cannot help listening to him. How is it possible? His room is near mine, and when his footsteps are sounding in it, in the midnight silence, hour after hour, my ears grow sensitively quick. I say that loving him, I cannot help it. Sometimes I think that if I only knew the cause, the nature of his sorrow, I might soothe it—perhaps help to remove it.'

'As if young ladies could ever help or remove the cares of business!' he cried, speaking lightly.

'I am not a child, Austin,' she resumed: 'it is not kind of you to make pretence that I am, and try to put me off as one. Papa's trouble is not connected with business, and I am sure you know that as well as I do. Will you not tell me what it is?'

'Florence, you can have no grounds for assuming that I am cognisant of it.'

'I feel very sure that you are. Can you suppose that I should otherwise speak of it to you?'

'I say that you can have no grounds for the supposition. By what do you so judge?'

'By signs,' she answered. 'I can read it in your countenance, your actions. I was pretty sure of it before that day when you sent me hastily into your rooms, lest I should hear what the man Gwinn was about to say; but I have been fully sure since. What he would have said related to it; and, in some way, the man is connected with the ill. Besides, you have been on confidential terms with papa for years.'

'On business matters only: not on private ones. My dear Florence, I must request you to let this subject cease, now and always. I know nothing of its nature from your father; and if my own thoughts have in any way strayed towards it, it is not fitting that I should give utterance to them.'

'Tell me one thing: could I be of any service, in any way?'

'Hush, Florence,' he uttered, as if the words had struck upon some painful cord. 'The only service you can render is, by taking no notice of it. Do not think of it if you can help; do not allude to it to your mother.'