“But it does concern you—indirectly.”
Poor Constance, timorous and full of dread since this grief had fallen, was too apt to connect everything with that one source. We have done the same in our lives, all of us, when under the consciousness of some secret terror. She appeared to be living upon a mine, which might explode any hour and bring down Hamish in its débris. The words bore an ominous sound; and, foolish as it may appear to us, who know the nature of Mr. Yorke’s news, Constance fell into something very like terror, and turned white.
“Does—does—it concern Arthur?” she uttered.
“No. Constance,” changing his tone, and dropping his hands as he gazed at her, “why should you be so terrified for Arthur? You have been a changed girl since that happened—shrinking, timid, starting at every sound, unable to look people in the face. Why so, if he is innocent?”
She shivered inwardly, as was perceptible to the eyes of Mr. Yorke. “Tell me the news,” she answered in a low tone, “if, as you say, it concerns me.”
“I hope it will concern you, Constance. At any rate, it concerns me. The news,” he gravely added, “is, that I am appointed to the Hazeldon chaplaincy.”
“Oh, William!” The sudden revulsion of feeling from intense, undefined terror to joyful surprise, was too much to bear calmly. Her emotion overpowered her, and she burst into tears. Mr. Yorke compelled her to sit down on the bench, and stood over her—his arm on her shoulder, her hand clasped in his.
“Constance, what is the cause of this?” he asked, when her emotion had passed.
She avoided the question. She dried her tears and schooled her face to smiles, and tried to look as unconscious as she might. “Is it really true that you have the chaplaincy?” she questioned.
“I received my appointment this evening. Why Sir Frederick should have conferred it upon me I am unable to say: I feel all the more obliged to him for its being unexpected. Shall you like the house, Constance?”