She could not tell. If they had still been rich, she thought to herself, this new prospect before her would have been one of unalloyed rejoicing. But now? They were so poor, and she feared much, the thought of another help-less being dependent on his unaided exertions would sadly deepen the lines already creeping round Geoffrey’s fair, boyish face, would quickly mingle grey hairs with the golden ones she had learnt to love so fondly. And then there came back to her recollection the words of Lady Anne, that day at Copley Wood when she had been so frightened about Geoffrey, and had yet been cruel enough to chill him by her affected indifference to his safe return.
“Geoffrey is so fond of children,” had said Lady Anne.
“Would he still feel so?” Marion asked herself. She could not make up her mind.
So she kept her news to herself for a while.
But when at last one day she confided it to her husband, she almost repented not having done so before. The relief to him was so immense of having a satisfactory explanation of Marion’s failing health and wearied looks, that all other considerations faded into insignificance. He had been watching her, though silently, with the most intense anxiety, and though fearful of distressing her by objecting to the fulfilment of her engagement with Mrs. Allen, had been counting the days till it should be at an end.
“Oh, my darling!” he said; “I am so thankful, so very thankful it is this and not worse. For the last week or two I have been in such misery about you. I saw how ill you were—saw you growing weaker and weaker before my eyes without knowing what to do. I seemed paralyzed when I first realized that it was not only my fancy, and yet I dreaded startling you by noticing it. Only to-day I had made up my mind to write to Veronica and ask her to arrange for your going to her for the rest of the winter. I thought this place was killing you, and yet I could not endure the thought of parting with you.”
“And do you think I would have left you, Geoffrey?” she whispered.
“I feared you would object to it, in your unselfishness, my darling—your generous pity for the man that has ruined your life.”
“Don’t, don’t,” she interrupted, laying her hand on his mouth. “It pains me so terribly when you speak so. It isn’t pity, Geoffrey. It is far, far more.”
He did not contradict her in her words; he looked at her fondly, with mingled reverence and tenderness. But she did not feel satisfied that he quite believed her.