Marjory had felt her heart lighten—until he came to that last word, which he said with hesitation, after a pause. For the moment it had appeared to her that the stranger’s eye, cooler than her own, had seen something re-assuring in the letter; but all the more for this momentary relief did her heart sink. “More!” she echoed, with a forlorn voice. “I could not be more alarmed than I am. I am almost more than alarmed. I am—.”
“Hush,” he said softly, putting out his hand to touch hers, with a momentary soothing, caressing touch. “Hush! don’t say anything to make your terrors worse. You are very anxious; and it is natural. But think, he is young; he will have two anxious nurses. He will have quiet and the sea-air, and the knowledge that he is coming home. After all, everything is in his favour. I do not ask you not to be anxious; but try to think of the good as well as the evil.”
“The evil is so much more likely than the good,” said Marjory. “He is weakened with fever; one of his nurses will be taken up with herself and her baby; the other is almost a stranger to him. Then the sea-air will be neutralized by the close cabin, the wearisome confinement; and he does not even know that his father will be glad to see him. Had he come home sick a month ago, only a month ago, he would not have been very welcome, perhaps. All this has to be considered, and poor Charlie knows it. Mr. Fanshawe, I do not mean to blame my poor father—”
“I know,” said Fanshawe, still with the same soothing tone and gesture. “You must not think me so dull and stupid. I am not much of a fellow—I am not worthy of your confidence; but at least I am capable of understanding. I see all that is passing—”
Marjory was half touched, half repelled; touched by his humility and by his sympathy; but so sensitive was her condition, almost turned from him by that position of spectator, that very faculty of seeing everything, of which he made a plea for her favour. She drew back from him slightly, without explaining to herself why.
“Yes,” she said; “but you must remember that a stranger sees more, sometimes, than there is to see; and less, less a great deal than he thinks. My father has always been a most kind father to all of us. At this present moment our loss has absorbed him in one thought; but he has always considered all our interests, and a month ago Charlie’s return would have meant a great loss to Charlie, which my father, with his sense of justice to the rest of us, would not have felt himself justified in making up.”
Marjory gave forth this piece of special pleading with a calm air of abstract justice, which moved Fanshawe at once to a smile and a tear. He dared not for his life have shown his inclination to the first; and, indeed, he was sufficiently attendri by his position to make the other more natural.
“I know, I know,” he said, hastily; and then added, “Nevertheless, I think you may put some confidence in the writer of this letter. Who is she—do you know her? It seems as if she would not talk, but do.”
“Charlie speaks of her as the strong-minded sister,” said Marjory. “He has mentioned her two or three times. Their father is a Civil servant in Calcutta, and she keeps his house. They have no mother. She takes care of everything, I have always heard. Charlie laughs at her, but I think he likes her. She does everything. Perhaps that is why the other sister is so helpless—I mean; Mr. Fanshawe, you hear everything as if you were one of the family. I have never seen Charlie’s wife; most likely my idea of her is wrong. You will forget it; you will not think of it again.”
“I hope I shall be worthy of your confidence,” said Fanshawe. “I think I almost am. It seems to me that I must be another man since I knew you. I have never thought much of anything; but now if thinking would do any good—”