The Colonel was full of confusion. He did not know what to say. He felt guilty and miserable, like a spy, and yet he was faithful to his consigne, and to the task that had been set him to do. ‘Indeed,’ he said, in his troubled voice, ‘my dear, I don’t know; but it was thought—I mean I thought, perhaps, that it would be a comfort to you—if you could have a little confidence in me.’
Joyce began to perceive dimly what he meant, and it brought a flush to her pale face. ‘But I have confidence—a great confidence,’ she said, very low, not looking at him. The Colonel took courage from these words.
‘Your father, you know, Joyce,—that is very proud of you, and to have such a daughter—and that would let no one vex you, not for a moment, my dear—not by a word or a thought—and that would like you to make a friend of him, and tell him—whatever you might like to tell him,’ he added, hastily breaking off in the middle of what he had meant to be a long speech, and giving double force to so much as he had said by these means.
Joyce had gradually aroused herself out of her dreams to understand the meaning in her father’s voice, which trembled and quickened, and then broke with a fulness of tender feeling which penetrated all the mists that were about her. There suddenly came to her a sense of help at hand—a belief in the being nearest to her in the world—a sort of viceroy of God more true than any pope—her father. What no one else could do he might do for her. It would be his place to do it; and it would be her right to appeal to him, to put her troubles into his hands. She had never realised this before: her father—who would let no one vex her, who would stand between her and harm, who would have a right to answer for her, and take upon himself her defence. The tears rushed to her eyes, and a sense of relief and lightening to her heart.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I will mind that. I will never forget it: my father, that is like God, to know the meaning in my heart, even if I am far wrong: and not to be hard on me, but to see where I was deceived, and to take my cause in hand.’
‘Deceived!’ the Colonel faltered, with mingled consternation and wrath. ‘Show me the man that would deceive you, my dear child, and leave him to me—leave him to me.’
‘What man? There is no man,’ said Joyce, shaking her head. ‘Oh, if it was but that! but when it is me that has been the deceiver—and yet meant no harm!’
Her eyes swimming in tears that made them larger and softer than ever eyes were, the Colonel thought, turned to him with a tender look of trust which went to his heart, and yet was less comprehensible to him than all that had gone before. He was puzzled beyond expression, and touched, and exalted, and dismayed. He had gained that confidence which he had sought, and yet he knew less than ever what it meant. And she had said he was like God, which confused and troubled the good man, and was very different from the mission that had been given him to find out his child’s secret, and to bring to book—what horrible words were these!—to bring to book! But whatever Joyce had on her mind, at least it was not Norman Bellendean.
And here in the emotion of the moment, and the rising of other and profounder emotions, the Colonel dropped his consigne, and gave up his investigations. He did not in the least understand what Joyce meant; but she had given him her confidence, and he was touched to the bottom of his tender heart. She had said that he would take her cause in hand, that he was her father like God—a new and curiously impressive view, turning all usual metaphors round about—that he would know her meaning, even if she were far wrong. Not a word of this did the Colonel comprehend—that is, the matter which called forth these expressions remained entirely dark to him; but it would have been profane, he felt, to ask for further enlightenment after she had thus thrown herself upon him for protection and help. He was glad to relieve the tension by having recourse to common subjects, so that without any further strain upon her, his delightful, tender, incomprehensible child might get rid of the tears in her eyes, and calm down.
The result was that the Colonel talked more than usual on that morning walk, and told Joyce more stories than usual of his old Indian comrades, and of things that had passed in his youth, going back thirty, forty years with at first a kind conscious effort to set her at her ease again, but after a while with his usual enjoyment in the lively recollection of these bright days which the old soldier loved to recall. And Joyce walked by his side in an atmosphere of her own, full of the bewitchment of a new enchanting presence suddenly revealed to her, full of the mystic, half-veiled consciousness of Love—love that was real love, the love of the poets, not anything she had ever known before. Her father’s voice seemed to keep the shadow away, the thought of the wrong she had done and the troth she had broken, but did not interfere with that new revelation, the light and joy with which the world was radiant, the inconceivable new thing which had looked at her out of Norman Bellendean’s eyes. She walked along as if she had been buoyed up by air, her heart filled with a great elation which was indescribable, which was not caused by anything, which looked forward to nothing, which was more than happiness, a nameless, causeless delight.