Mrs. Russell looked up, and was surprised to find that the girl, after bearing her reproaches so mildly, was now actually crying. She noted again, too, with a start of shocked surprise how sadly she had changed. The fresh, bright beauty which had once charmed every eye had gone, leaving scarcely a trace behind it, and the face was pale, careworn, and sad. She got up and kissed her, and that silent caress did more than a dozen reproaches. It made Edith hurriedly leave the room, to cast herself, crying bitterly, upon the bed, while Mrs. Russell sat down and wrote a note to Walter.
“You shall have your own way about staying at the inn,” she wrote, “and you shall also have every possible hour of the day that you can make use of for your work; but surely you can spare your evenings for us. I have arranged to dine every day at six, and I beg of you, for Edith’s sake, to make one of the party. Dear Edith is far from well, and sadly changing. She sees so few people, and the house is dull. Dear Walter, come often, for her sake if not for mine.”
Thus it happened that every night, when the little dining-room was laid out for dinner, Walter made his appearance at the cottage door, and that during those evening hours the family party was increased to three. Sometimes they left the dinner-table to lounge in the pretty little drawing-room, where Walter was permitted to smoke his cigar, while the old lady worked at wool-work, and Edith played to them in the slowly gathering darkness. Sometimes they strolled out on to the lawn, and had the tea brought out, and laughed and chatted while they watched the stars appear one by one in the heavens. Was it fancy, or since these social evenings commenced was Edith really changed’ for the better? Walter fancied that her eye was brighter, her cheek less pale, and that her manner towards himself was sometimes very tender, as if she wished in a measure to atone for her past coldness. This was particularly noticeable one night when the two sat alone in the drawing-room.
Mrs. Russell, murmuring something about household affairs, had left them together. Walter was reclining in an armchair, smoking his cigar and watching his cousin, who was busily engaged embroidering crosses upon a handsome altar-cloth, intended for the decoration of the church.
“These have been pleasant evenings,” he said—“pleasant for me, that is. I shall be sorry enough when they come to an end.”
Edith looked up and smiled sadly.
“If we always had pleasure it would become a pain,” she said. “Though we rebel against pain and suffering, it is, after all, a very great boon to the world.”
“Humph! Perhaps so, if it were better distributed. What about the poor creatures whose portion is only pain?—who, to put it vulgarly, get all the kicks, and none of the halfpence?”
“In this world, you should have said, Walter. Let us hope their measure of happiness will be greater in the world that is to come.”
Walter was silent. The conversation had taken precisely the turn which he would have avoided, and he was wondering how to bring it to the subject which was for ever uppermost in his mind. For a time he remained in a brown study. Edith stitched on. Then he rose, took a few turns about the room, and stopped near to her chair.