“Why so?” asked Trevor.
“Why? Don’t you see that she evidently thinks things are wrong, and she wants you to hold yourself free? The Methvyns are all proud, and I suspect Cicely has her full share of their pride, notwithstanding her quiet ways, poor child. I know what her father was when he was young. You may take my word for it, Trevor, if things are as bad as I fear, Cicely will be proposing to break off with you.”
Mr. Fawcett had risen from his seat, and was tramping up and down the room. He did not wish his father to see how exceedingly he was startled by this fresh view of matters. Cicely to give him up! And why? Because she was no longer rich, could no longer bring Greystone as her dowry—Cicely, his dear old friend and playmate, his promised wife—could he accept such a release? Cicely rich, he had come to think, or, to fancy he thought, that she did not care for him, that she was cold and indifferent, that she would be glad to break with him—he had excused his own weakness and folly by such specious arguments, and had tried to think he believed them. But Cicely poor!
“No,” he said to himself, “if this is true, not all the Genevièves on earth should persuade me to give her up. Was there ever in this world such a fool as I have been? But still, if this is true, my course is clear.”
A momentary relief seemed to come with this reflection, but it was only momentary. A vision of Geneviève, miserable and reproachful, of lovely, silly little Geneviève, came before him, and he groaned in his spirit.
“Father,” he said abruptly, stopping short in his walk, just beside Sir Thomas’s chair, “what you say makes me very uneasy indeed. I have no doubt it is as you say—it quite explains Cicely’s conduct. But it makes it the more necessary that I should see her—at least, that any morbid feeling of the kind she may have should be done away with. What shall we do? Will you go to the Abbey to-morrow? I don’t think they would refuse to see you.”
Sir Thomas considered a little. “Yes,” he said, “I will go if you like. However things are, I don’t think Mrs. Methvyn would refuse to see me. Indeed, till two years ago, I was one of their trustees. Of course, it would not do to seem as if we were prying into things; but if anything is wrong, I dare say Helen will be glad to tell me, and then I can, at least, find out what fancy it is that Cicely has got into her head.”
“Thank you, father. Thank you very much,” said Trevor, with no lack of cordiality in his tone this time.
“I must see Geneviève,” he said to himself. “I must explain to her how I am placed. I must see her before I see Cicely now.”
But on further reflection, he decided that it would be better to do nothing till Sir Thomas had paid his visit.