‘But, Cousin Heathcote, you must not speak so. Why should you? You are young; life is all before a man at your age.’
‘Who told you that?’ he said with a smile. ‘That is one of your feminine delusions. An old fellow of thirty-five, when he is an old fellow, is as old as Methuselah, Anne. He has seen everything and exhausted everything. This is the true age at which all is vanity. If he catches at a new interest and begins to hope for a renewal of his heart, something is sure to come in and stop him. He is frustrated and all his opportunities baulked as in my own case—or something else happens. I know you think a great deal more of our privileges than they deserve.’
‘We are taught to do so,’ said Anne. ‘We are taught that all our best time is when we are young, but that it is different with a man. A man, so to speak, never grows old.’
‘One knows what that means. He is supposed to be able to marry at any age. And so he is—somebody. But, if you will reflect, few men want to marry in the abstract. They want to marry one individual person, who, so far as my experience goes, is very often, most generally I should say, not for them. Do you think it is a consolation for the man who wants to marry Ethelinda, that probably Walburgha might have him if he asked her? I don’t see it. You see how severely historical I am in my names.’
‘They are both Mountford names,’ said Anne, ‘but very severe—archæological, rather than historical.’ And then they came out on the other side and were silent, coming to the broad stretch of the park on which Mr. Mountford’s accident took place. They walked along very silently with a sort of mournful fellowship between them. So far as this went there was nobody in the world with whom Anne could feel so much in common. His mind was full of melancholy recollections as he walked along the crisp and crackling grass. He seemed to see the quiet evening shadows, the lights in the windows, and to hear the tranquil voice of the father of the family pointing out the welcome which the old house seemed to give: and then the stumble, the fall, the cry; and the long long watch in the dark, so near help—the struggles of the horse—the stillness of the huddled heap which could scarcely be identified from the horse, in the fatal gloom. When they came to the spot they stood still, as over a grave. There were still some marks of the horse’s frantic hoofs in the heavy grass.
‘Was it long?’ he said. ‘The time seemed years to me—but I suppose it was not an hour.’
‘They thought only about half-an-hour,’ said Anne, in a low reverential voice.
‘A few minutes were enough,’ Heathcote said, and again there was a silence. He took her hand, scarcely knowing what he did.
‘We are almost strangers,’ he said; ‘but this one recollection will bind us together, will it not, for all our lives?’
Anne gave a soft pressure to his hand, partly in reply, partly in gratitude. Her eyes were full of tears, her voice choked. ‘I hope he had no time to think,’ she said.