“It is Innocent’s own doing,” said his mother in self-defence; “it is she alone who is responsible. I have had nothing to do with it, for I feel as you do, Frederick,—to some extent.”
“To some extent!—I don’t know how you can limit the extent,” he cried in fiery indignation,—“and how about this,—what do you call it?—this fancy,—this delusion——? She ought not to be allowed to go out of the family with such a notion in her mind.”
“Frederick, I am afraid you will be annoyed,” said poor Mrs. Eastwood, “I was very much distressed myself. She—told him everything;—though, indeed, if they are to be married, it was indispensable that he should know——”
Frederick almost foamed at the mouth with rage and vexation. He refused to believe that Innocent could have done anything of the kind of her own initiative,—he insisted that some one had suggested it, that she had been frightened,—that the idea had been put into her mind. After the improvement and amelioration of his manners, to which they had been gradually getting accustomed, he went to the very farthest bound of their endurance. He would be no party to the arrangement, he declared,—they might carry it out if they would, but without him. Frederick, indeed, was stung to the quick by what seemed to him the most manifold and most complicated invasion of his rights. Innocent had been his slave since ever he knew her, and she was to be taken from him,—and the secret of her delusion, or whatever it was, was exposed to a stranger. His wife’s death, and Innocent’s connexion with it, whatever that might be, all talked of, discussed, pulled to pieces by others! I think Frederick had some ground for general irritation, though he had no right to blame any one individually; he was very sore and very angry at this revolution of affairs; he had begun to think that Innocent was very pretty and sweet, and that he might reward her for her devotion to him, when lo, there came, first this story about Amanda’s death, and then Innocent’s sudden, unaccountable throwing of herself into Longueville’s arms! By degrees he became less sore, and began to think that he understood the latter incident, and Innocent, feeling what a great gulf lay between them now, now that he knew what had happened, had fled to Sir Alexis from her own despair and his. This made him less sore, but not less sorry. He had been conscious that he must think of her no more when he heard her revelation on the previous night, but as soon as further thinking of her was useless, he felt that the revelation she had made was nothing,—that it was indeed mere delusion, as his mother said, and that Innocent, once removed out of his reach, became the thing he most longed for in the world. Altogether, that night brought him little comfort. He was impatient, unhappy, irritable, nay furious; and, naturally, his fury fixed upon those who deserved it least,—upon his mother and sister, who were absolutely innocent, and upon Sir Alexis, who had been brought into the matter by appeal, without any action of his. It was some days after this before he could even secure a chance of speaking to Innocent alone. They kept her from him watchfully, yet so naturally, that much as he chafed, he could say nothing,—and Longueville was there in the evenings, filling him with suppressed rage. At last fortune favoured him, and he found her for a few minutes alone.
“Innocent,” he said, “I fear you are going to take a very foolish step. Who has advised you to do it? You ought not to marry Longueville,—a man whom you cannot care for,—a man so much older than yourself.”
Innocent shrank from him into the corner of the sofa where she was sitting. She made no answer,—but she shrank unquestionably, which made him more angry still.
“You are very foolish,—because you have been unhappy, you determine to be more unhappy, to leave no way of escape for yourself. If you marry that man you can have no sympathy with him. He is older than your father. Was there no one else in the world to help you, Innocent, that you should have referred to him?”
“Do not be angry,” sighed Innocent, softly, turning upon him her anxious, deprecating eyes. “No one else offered to help me. He is very kind——”
“Oh, kind!” cried Frederick, “is any one unkind? When you say such a thing you accuse us all. Surely I could have helped you better than Longueville——”
“Not you, Frederick,” said the girl. She did not withdraw her eyes from him, but a faint flush came upon her face.