“It happened a long time ago, very soon after my father’s death,” she said quietly. “I—I believed it was for the best then; since, I have come to feel sure of it.” Here her colour rose a very little. “It was a comfort to me to be able to devote myself entirely to my mother when her health failed,” she went on, as if in explanation of her words; “there was no other tie to interfere.”
Mr. Guildford bowed his head slightly, as if to signify that he understood. “Thank you for telling me,” he said, as Bessie came in again.
Cicely was very silent during the walk home, and answered at random to Eudoxie’s chatter, agreeing with the child’s announcement that she did not intend to call “him Monsieur Gentil.” “He is not gentil at all,” she decided, the truth being that Mr. Guildford had not taken any notice of her, for there was a spice of Geneviève in Eudoxie now and then after all.
“How strange to have met again here!” Cicely was thinking to herself. “It is as well, if it was to be, that it happened unexpectedly. It will prevent his feeling constrained and ill at ease with me on account of that fancy of his, if indeed he remembers it.”
[CHAPTER IX.]
A SOUTHERN WINTER.
“Listen how the linnets sing, Cicely dear;
Watch you where the lilies spring, Cicely sweet.”
* * * * * *
“The lilies shall be for thy brow to wear,
The linnets shall sing of the love I bear.”
Ballad.
NO sooner had the door closed on Cicely and her little cousin than Mrs. Crichton’s pent-up curiosity broke forth. She overwhelmed her brother with questions and cross-questions as to the how, where, and when of his former acquaintance with Miss Methvyn, till Mr. Guildford was fairly driven into a corner. He defended himself valiantly for some time; he tried short answers, but even monosyllables failed in their usually chilling effect on the irrepressible Bessie. She was not to be snubbed; she only grew increasingly pertinacious and finally cross.
“It is too bad of you to be so absurdly reserved with me, Edmond,” she said at last. “You are not a doctor now; I am not asking you to gossip about your patients. You will make me suspect something mysterious if you don’t take care.”