Hilary’s voice trembled slightly as she spoke.
“If that had been the only occasion on which Captain Hepburn had shown his courage and dauntless spirit,” replied Charles, “I should still say that he was first in honor, for he led the way; I did but follow his example. But I know this is not the case; I know that it is only one of several such instances. I have heard that he has dared a leap into a wild tossing sea, in a dark and stormy day, to save a helpless fellow-creature. Is not that the fact, Miss Duncan?”
With glowing cheeks and quivering eyelids, Hilary assented.
“Perhaps,” said Isabel, “there are braver acts done quietly and almost unnoticed even than that, heroic as it seems. Acts which require a more generous heart and noble nature than the human courage which would lead a sailor to dare the storm, to help a shipmate in distress.”
Mr. Huyton rather looked than asked for an explanation. Isabel went on.
“To throw oneself from the pedestal of glory in order to place another there, to refuse the honorable distinction due to courage that it may be transferred to a companion in exertion, is a quiet heroism, a generous self-devotion, which requires a firmer and braver heart than the mere defiance of bodily danger.”
Mr. Huyton bent down his eyes upon the damask table-cloth, and only showed, by the silence that followed, that he understood the lady’s meaning. Hilary could not avoid looking at him; she knew better than Isabel the extent of generosity which could induce him to praise a successful rival. No words which he could have spoken could have so moved her heart toward him as this commendation of one whom she had supposed him to dislike. It was noble, candid, high-minded; she had not given him credit for such feelings; she had been unjust to him in her imagination; she wished to make amends. She gave him a look which expressed some part of her feeling; and while with lips trembling with emotion, and eyes sparkling with pleasure, she glanced at him, he suddenly raised his own eyes, met hers, and read her heart.
Isabel Barham little suspected the hidden emotions of the man to whom she was carefully studying to be agreeable. If she had at one time, for a short period, feared the influence of Hilary, such fears were entirely dissipated by the intelligence which had reached her, of her friend’s engagement. She little dreamed how often the Vicar’s daughter had refused the hand to which she was so willing to reach out her own; or that the
affections she would so gladly have won, had long been passionately and hopelessly devoted to another.
The heiress of the Abbey would not have deigned to stoop for a heart which her inferior rival had refused to accept; she would have scorned the acquisition had she really understood the position of affairs. Had she loved Mr. Huyton, her feelings would have been different; but love had nothing to do with the matter; it was a desirable connection, that was all. She might be capable of loving, perhaps, if she had the temptation; but as yet it had never occurred, and Charles Huyton was not the man to captivate her nature. The vagaries of affections are incomprehensible, and unaccountable by any rule; but the effects of ambition, love of importance, and worldly position, are much more easy to calculate. By these, at the present moment, Miss Barham was governed.