He told her that they must stand firm--that she must be patient--that Ferrier would work for them--and Lady Lucy would come round. And she, loving him more and more with every word, seeing in him a god of consolation and of chivalry, trusted him wholly. It was characteristic of her that she did not attempt heroics for the heroics' sake; there was no idea of renouncing him with a flourish of trumpets. He said he loved her, and she believed him. But her heart went on its knees to him in a gratitude that doubled love, even in the midst of her aching bewilderment and pain.
He made her come out with him before luncheon; he talked with her of politics and their future; he did his best to scatter the nightmare in which she moved.
But after awhile he felt his efforts fail. The scenes that held her mind betrayed themselves in her recurrent pallor, the trembling of her hand in his, her piteous, sudden looks. She did not talk of her mother, but he could not presently rouse her to talk of anything else; she sat silent in her chair, gazing before her, her slender hands on her knee, dreaming and forlorn.
Then he remembered, and with involuntary relief, that he must get back to town, and to the House, for an important division. He told her, and she made no protest. Evidently she was already absorbed in the thought of Sir James Chide's visit. But when the time came for him to go she let herself be kissed, and then, as he was moving away, she caught his hand, and held it wildly to her lips.
"Oh, if you hadn't come!--if you hadn't come!" Her tears fell on the hand.
"But I did come!" he said, caressing her. "I was here last night--did Mrs. Colwood tell you? Afterward--in the dark--I walked up to the hill, only to look down upon this house, that held you."
"If I had known," she murmured, on his breast, "I should have slept."
He went--in exaltation; overwhelmed by her charm even in this eclipse of grief, and by the perception of her passion.
But before he was half-way to London he felt that he had been rather foolish and quixotic in not having told her simply and practically what his mother's opposition meant. She must learn it some day; better from him than others. His mother, indeed, might tell her in the letter she had threatened to write. But he thought not. Nobody was more loftily secret as to business affairs than Lady Lucy; money might not have existed for the rare mention she made of it. No; she would base her opposition on other grounds.