CHAPTER IV
Dinner over, Francis Eversleigh retired to his room, again excusing himself on the plea of headache, adding in a very uncertain voice that he would no doubt be better in the morning; but he looked harassed, worn, and ill. His wife concealed her consternation at his state as well as she could, and mentally tried to assign some cause for it; on reflection she thought that his reference at table to Harry Bennet, whose affairs, now much involved, she knew to be in the hands of the firm, probably suggested the correct explanation. Anxious to minister to her husband, and to find out if possible what distressed him so sorely, she wished to be alone with him, and she urged the others to go out for a stroll by the river.
As the young people, nothing loth, went out, the two brothers exchanged a few words, Gilbert asking Ernest if he knew of anything in the office that had upset their father.
"I saw him in the forenoon," he remarked, "and he was looking as well as could be then. I hope he's not going to have an illness."
"I know of nothing particularly worrying in the office," returned Ernest. "How should there be? I fancy it is just as he says—he's got a bad headache, perhaps from the heat. I don't fancy that there is anything else the matter with him. He'll be all right to-morrow, you'll see."
Now, when Gilbert was at Surbiton, there was an unwritten law that when they took their walks abroad he should pair off with Kitty, and Ernest with Helen. This arrangement was so well understood that Ernest never thought of even grumbling at it. So Gilbert and Kitty led the way to the terrace or esplanade on that side of the Thames, where they found a sequestered seat. And there they were left by the other two, who walked on towards the waterworks.
It was a delightful summer evening. The air was soft, balmy, sweet; a light breeze whispered delicate suggestions, and wooed to pleasant thoughts and tender fancies; a crescent moon, shining low over the trees on to the water, brought to the scene that touch of sentiment which is the very breath of poetry and romance. It was a night for lovers! Love, passion, sighs, smiles, fond hopes, fervent vows, eloquent prayers, the gentle rain of happy tears—all were in the enchanted atmosphere of the place that night.
It was one of those magical nights on which the heart is likely to be easily and perhaps profoundly stirred, and Gilbert Eversleigh, with the woman he loved by his side, was in a frame of mind to respond only too quickly to its influence. He longed to speak to Kitty, to tell her that he loved her, to ask her to unite her life with his, to press her dear hand, to taste the sweetness of her lips; but he forced himself to silence, though the restraint he imposed on his desire for utterance made it but gain the greater strength.
It may be that Kitty suspected she was on the edge of a crisis, for she too was quiet, and for the first time in her life somehow felt shy with Gilbert. Of course she did not require any one to tell her that he loved her, and more than once she had asked herself if she loved him, and she had answered "Yes." Thus, though words of love had never passed between them, she was none the less conscious of the existence of their love. And this made life joy, even if there was at the back of her mind a tremulous maidenly sensitiveness which made her half afraid of her happiness. An instinct of reserve now warned her to say or do nothing which could be taken by Gilbert as an opening.
Therefore a sort of constraint fell upon them, but still there was a sweetness about it; for was there not a nearness and an intimacy in the dreamy brooding silence, the outward sign of this constraint, which was only possible between true lovers?