All this time Lauderdale was standing at his window, watching in the darkness for an occasional glimpse of something moving among the trees. He had put out his light by instinct, that Colin might not think he was being watched. He kept looking out upon the wild tree-tops swaying about in the wind, and upon the wilder clouds, dashed and heaped about the sky, with a great sadness in his heart. Colin’s nature was not like his; yet by dint of a sympathy which had been expanding and growing with the young man’s growth, and a knowledge of him and his ways, which no one in the world possessed to the same extent, Lauderdale had very nearly divined what was in his friend’s heart. He divined at the same time that he must never divine it, nor betray by word or look that such an idea had ever entered his mind. And that was why he put his light out, and, watching long till Colin had come in, said his prayers in the dark, and went to rest without seeking any communication with him, though his heart was yearning over him. It was Colin, and not Lauderdale, who was the hero of that silent struggle. Yet perhaps there was no single pang in the young man’s suffering so exquisite as that which thrilled through his companion as he resigned himself to an appearance of repose, and denied himself so much as a look at his friend, to whom he had been like a father. At such a moment a look might have been a betrayal; and now it was Lauderdale’s business to second Colin’s resolution—to avoid all confidence, and to save him even from himself.
CHAPTER LII.
After this agitated night the morning came, as morning has a knack of coming, with that calm freshness and insouciance which exasperates a mind in distress. What does Nature care about what happened last night or may happen to-morrow? If she had disturbed herself for such trifles, she must have died of it in her first thousand years. The new day, on the contrary, was as gay and as easy in her mind as if in all the world there were no painful puzzles awaiting her, and no inheritance of yesterday to be disposed of. Somehow the sight of that fresh and joyous light recalled to Colin the looks of the fair spring mornings in Italy, which used to burst in upon Arthur’s deathbed with what always seemed to him a look of careless surprise and inquiry. But Alice for her part found a tender sweetness in the new day. All that was bright in nature came and paid court to her by reason of her happiness—for there is no fairweather friend so frank in her intruded intentions as Nature, though it is happiness and not grandeur to which she attaches herself. Alice went down to breakfast that morning, which she had not been able to do for a long time. She had laid aside her black dress by instinct, and put on a white one, which had nothing but its black ribbons to mark it as mourning; and there was a little delicate colour on her cheek, and her eyes, though a little too large and clear, had a glimmer of sunshine in them, like the light in a dewdrop. Colin would have been hardhearted indeed, had he refused to be moved by that tender revival of health and hope, which was owing to him solely; and his friends are aware that Colin was not hardhearted. He was, perhaps, even more thoughtful of her, more devoted to her, than he would have been had the timidity of real love been upon him. When the breakfast was over—and naturally there was still a certain embarrassment upon the party so abruptly united, and made up of elements so unlike each other—Colin and Alice were left together. He proposed to her to go out, and they went out, for Alice had forgotten all about the precautions which the day before were so necessary for her. They went into the avenue, where the daylight and the sunshine had tamed down the wind into a cheerful breeze. Nothing of the landscape outside was to be seen from that sheltered enclosure—no more than could have been seen through the close shade of the ilexes at Frascati, which they were both thinking of as they strayed along under the shadow of the trees; but the stately elms and green transparent lime leaves which shadowed the avenue of Holmby were as unlike as could be supposed to the closely woven sombre green which shut out the overwhelming sunshine in the grounds of the Villa Conti. Here the sun was very supportable, to say the truth; there was no occasion to shut it out, and even when a great tree came in the way, and interfered with it, a little shiver came over Alice. And yet it was June, the same month in which they had wandered through the ilex cloister, and watched the span of blue sky blazing at the end, the only indication visible that the great shining glowing world lay outside. Colin was so full of recollections, so full of thoughts, that at first he could find but little to say; and, as for Alice, her content did not stand in need of any words to express it. Nor could any words have expressed, on the other hand, the profound remorseful tenderness, almost more tender than love itself, with which Colin bent over her, and held her supported on his arm.
“Do you remember the ilexes in the Villa Conti?” he said. “It was about this time, was it not?”
“It was on the second of June,” said Alice, hastily. She was half vexed that the day had not been marked by him as by her. “Oh, yes, I remember every twig, I think,” she said, with a smile. “The second of June was on a Sunday this year. I think I cried nearly all day, for it seemed as if you never would come. And not to know where you were, or how you were, all these four dreary, dreary years!——”
What could Colin do? He pressed the hand that clung to his arm, and answered as he best could, touched ever more and more with that tenderness of remorse towards the woman who loved him. “You know it was not any fault of mine. It was your father who sent me away.”
“Yes, I know,” said Alice; “it was that always that kept me up, for I knew you would not change. Poor papa! he has had such dreadful lessons. Mrs. Meredith, you know, and the poor little children! I used to think, if God would only have taken me, and left them who were so happy——”
And here there was a little pause, for Alice had some tears to brush away, and Colin, ever more and more touched, could not but offer such consolations as were natural under the circumstances. And it was Alice who resumed at length, with the simple certainty natural to her mind.
“I see now that it was all for the best,” she said; “God has been so good to us. Oh, Colin, is it not true about His mysterious ways?—and that everything works together for good, though it may seem hard at the time.”
Perhaps Colin found it difficult to answer this question; perhaps, not being absorbed by his own happiness, he could not but wonder over again if poor Mrs. Meredith and her children who were dead, would have seen that working of Providence in the same light as Alice did. But then this was not a subject to be discussed between two lovers; and, if it was not Providence who had seized upon him in the midst of his thoughtless holiday, and brought him back to the bonds of his youth, and changed all his prospects in the twinkling of an eye, what was it? Not the heathen Fate, taking a blind vengeance upon Folly, which was a harder thing to think of than the ways, however mysterious, of God. These were not thoughts to be passing through a man’s mind at such a moment; and Colin avoided the answer which was expected of him, and plunged into more urgent affairs.