“It is I,” she said. “It is always I. Don’t you see, Nina? It is I that he is afraid of. But for me I dare say he would come back; but for me he would never have gone away.”
Godfrey Auriol had not yet returned. All this time Mr Morison was looking forward to his coming back as to a sort of goal.
“He is so quick-witted and alert,” he said to Nina, for to Lettice he seldom spoke of his fellow-guardian—it was easy to see that the mention of his name always was met by her with shrinking and reluctance. “He is so energetic and clever, and he knows Arthur personally. I cannot help thinking that when he returns he will suggest something. Hitherto certainly everything has lamentably failed!”
For Mr Winthrop and Philip had been to Liverpool, had seen Mr Simcox, who could only assure them that no one in the least answering to the description of Arthur, or “the gentleman tramp,” had applied to him, and that he had never received the letter of introduction; they had inquired, so far as they dared without transgressing Mr Morison’s injunctions of privacy, in every part of the town, but without any result. There was even, after all, some amount of uncertainty as to whether the young man who had been so kindly received at the rectory had been Arthur Morison; though whether he were, or were not, Mr Winthrop was equally at a loss to explain his never having made use of the introduction he had so thankfully received.
“I wonder Philip has not come back to town, when he knows we are all here together,” said Mrs Morison one evening. “I never knew him stay so long at the Winthrops’ before.”
“There may be some attraction,” said Mr Morison. “You forget, my dear Gertrude, that your niece Daisy is seventeen now, and she bade fair to be a very pretty girl.”
Nina was sitting at the piano. She had been playing, and had turned half carelessly on the stool, to join in the conversation going on. Suddenly she wheeled round and began playing again, more loudly and energetically than was her wont. Lettice, on her side, who was helping her aunt to pour out the tea, grew so pale that Mrs Morison was on the point of asking her what was the matter, when a slight warning touch of the girl’s hand on her arm restrained her.
“I must warn Ingram,” thought Mrs Morison, some vague remembrance returning to her of having heard or been told by some one of her nephew Philip’s having greatly admired one of her husband’s nieces. Lettice or Nina, which was it? Oh, Nina it must have been, that time she was staying with the Curries near Philip’s home. And she stole a glance of sympathy at the girl at the piano, who continued to play, more softly now and with an undertone of sadness in her touch which seemed to appeal to her aunt’s kind heart.
“Poor little thing,” she thought. “But if there is anything in it, it will not be difficult to put it right.”
She turned to look for Lettice, with some vague idea of seeking her confidence on the subject. Lettice was sitting quietly at a little distance, with a book open before her. Mrs Morison was crossing the room to sit down beside her, when a ring at the bell made them all start. Not that rings at the bell are so uncommon an occurrence in a London house, but it was getting late, no visitor was expected, and the ring had a decided and slightly authoritative sound.