‘No—I haven’t seen them. I hadn’t the courage. I could think of nothing but you. You’ll do it for me, Elizabeth? you’ll see what you think. I—I couldn’t look up the old things. I—couldn’t—decide—I couldn’t——’
He could do nothing but tremble, it seemed, and falter out these broken words, and lean back upon her, the colour going out of his face. She thought he was about to faint.
‘Come, Henry, this will never do,’ she said quickly. ‘Rouse yourself, my dear fellow—rouse yourself up. We will bear it together, whatever it may be. And it doesn’t seem, so far as I can see, as if there would be anything new to bear.’
‘If it was so. She never told me, Elizabeth—that anything like that could happen.’
‘Perhaps she did not know. You have always said she was young and inexperienced. Oh, poor thing! poor thing!’
He loosed his hands from hers, and suddenly threw his arms round her, enfolding her, with something like a sound of sobbing. ‘If it was fault of mine, God forgive me! God forgive me! But, Elizabeth, my dear! it has always been all right between you and me—as I felt sure all along.’
Her bright eyes were for a moment dimmed too. She gave him a sudden light kiss upon his old cheek, and then softly detached herself. ‘We will say no more about that just now. If all this is as you think, Henry, there is something more important even than you and me—the girl.’
‘Ah, the girl!’ He spoke vaguely, as if his attention had been distracted from that part of the subject. ‘You will see her,’ he said, ‘the very living image—and then the name—just as she was the last time I ever saw her. Elizabeth: you will understand the kind of creature she was—the—the impetuosity—the——’
‘Don’t dwell on all that, or you will upset yourself again. See her! of course I shall see her. You don’t seem to realise what a wonderful change for her—and us too. But don’t you think it is you who ought to see her first and tell her—you who are, after all, the chief person——’
‘I!’ he cried with dismay, interrupting her. ‘Why the chief person? Did I ever set myself up as the chief person? We have gone along with each other, Elizabeth, in everything that has been done.’