Her position was now so different from what it had been when he proposed to her, and the severity, the pride, the arrogance of Sir Richard so indisputable, that she feared the worst. Moreover, she knew, from the present conduct of both father and son, that she had cause to fear it.
Twice, and twice only, had William Blake-Gordon come to her since her father's death, and he might so easily have come to her every day in her desolation! Each time he had been kind and loving as ever; not a suspicion, not a hint of separation had appeared in look or tone; but in his manner there had been something never seen before: a reticence; a keeping back, as it were, of words that ought to come out: and instinct told her that all was not as it used to be.
"How does your father take the news?--What does he say to it, and to my loss of fortune?--Is he still willing to receive me?" she had asked on each occasion; and as often he had contrived to put aside the questions without satisfactory answer.
Days went on; her position, as to lack of fortune, was known abroad; and the suspense she endured was making her ill. One morning at the breakfast table, as she finished reading some letters that had been delivered for her, Mrs. Webb, who had scanned the letters outside from the opposite side of the table, put a question that she often did put.
"Is any one of them from Mr. Blake-Gordon, my dear?"
"No," replied Mary. And no one but herself knew what it cost her to have to say it; or how trying to her was the usual silence that followed the answer.
"I will end the suspense," she said to herself, shutting herself in her own sitting-room when the meal was over. "It is Sir Richard, I know; not William: but at least they shall not find me willing to enter the family on bare sufferance. I will give them the opportunity of retiring from the engagement--if that be what they wish for."
Drawing her desk towards her, she paused with the pen in her hand, deliberating how to write. Whether in a cold formal strain, or affectionately and confidently as of yore: and she decided on the latter.
"My Dearest William,
"My circumstances have so changed since the early days of our engagement, that I feel I am now, in writing to you, adopting the only course left open to me, both in fairness to you and for the sake of my own future happiness and peace of mind.