His eyes fell before that unfathomable concentration of hers. “And you would trust me like that—knowing so little, so little? And how can you tell even that I am honest—even that I am true? That there’s nothing behind, no weakness, no failure?”
“Don’t speak to me,” she said harshly. “I know.”
CHAPTER XXII.
The evening passed, however, without any further revelations. Miss Bethune explained to the young man, with all the lucidity of a man of business, the situation and requirements of that “property in the North,” which would give returns, she believed, of various kinds, not always calculated in balance sheets, if it was looked after by a man who would deal with it “as if it were his own.” The return would be something in money and rents, but much more in human comfort and happiness. She had never had the courage to tackle that problem, she said, and the place had been terrible to her, full of associations which would be thought of no more if he were there. The result was, that young Gordon went away thoughtful, somewhat touched by the feeling with which Miss Bethune had spoken of her poor crofters, somewhat roused by the thought of “the North,” that vague and unknown country which was the country of his fathers, the land of brown heath and shaggy wood, the country of Scott, which is, after all, distinction enough for any well-conditioned stranger. Should he try that strange new opening of life suddenly put before him? The unknown of itself has a charm—
If the pass were dangerous known,
The danger’s self were lure alone.
He went back to his hotel with at least a new project fully occupying all his thoughts.
On the next evening, in the dusk of the summer night, Miss Bethune was in her bed-chamber alone. She had no light, though she was a lover of the light, and had drawn up the blinds as soon as the young physician who prescribed a darkened room had disappeared. She had a habit of watching out the last departing rays of daylight, and loved to sit in the gloaming, as she called it, reposing from all the cares of the day in that meditative moment. It was a bad sign of Miss Bethune’s state of mind when she called early for her lamp. She was seated thus in the dark, when young Gordon came in audibly to the sitting-room, introduced by Gilchrist, who told him her mistress would be with him directly; but, knowing Miss Bethune would hear what she said, did not come to call her. The lamps were lighted in that room, and showed a little outline of light through the chinks of the door. She smiled to herself in the dark, with a beatitude that ought to have lighted it up, as she listened to the big movements of the young man in the lighted room next door. He had seated himself under Gilchrist’s ministrations; but when she went away he got up and moved about, looking, as Miss Bethune divined, at the pictures on the walls and the books and little silver toys on the tables.
He made more noise, she thought to herself proudly, than a woman does: filled the space more, seemed to occupy and fill out everything. Her countenance and her heart expanded in the dark; she would have liked to peep at him through the crevice of light round the door, or even the keyhole, to see him when he did not know she was looking, to read the secrets of his heart in his face. There were none there, she said to herself with an effusion of happiness which brought the tears to her eyes, none there which a mother should be afraid to discover. The luxury of sitting there, holding her breath, hearing him move, knowing him so near, was so sweet and so great, that she sat, too blessed to move, taking all the good out of that happy moment before it should fleet away.
Suddenly, however, there came a dead silence. Had he sat down again? Had he gone out on the balcony? What had become of him? She sat breathless, wondering, listening for the next sound. Surely he had stepped outside the window to look out upon the Bloomsbury street, and the waving of the trees in the Square, and the stars shining overhead. Not a sound—yet, yes, there was something. What was it? A faint, stealthy rustling, not to be called a sound at all, rather some stealthy movement to annihilate sound—the strangest contrast to the light firm step that had come into the room, and the free movements which she had felt to be bigger than a woman’s.