Lover or Friend

by Rosa Nouchette Carey

'If I could only bear some of his suffering,' she thought, 'if I could only comfort him, I should not care what became of myself. I would sooner bear anything than incur this awful responsibility of spoiling a life;' and Audrey wept again.

But even at this miserable crisis she shrank from questioning herself too closely. A sort of terror and strange beating at the heart assailed her if she tried to look into her own thoughts. Was there no subtle sweetness in the knowledge that she was so beloved? No wish, lying deep down in her heart, that it might have been possible to comfort him?

'It would not do—it would not do. I am sure of him, but not of myself,' she thought, 'and it would make them all so unhappy. If I could only think it right——' and then she stopped, and there was a sad, sad look in her eyes. 'I will not think of it any more to-night.' And then she knelt and, in her simple girlish way, prayed that God would forgive her, for she had been wrong, miserably wrong; and would comfort him, and make it possible for them to remain friends: 'for I do not wish to lose him,' thought Audrey, as she laid her head on her pillow that, for once in her bright young life, seemed sown with thorns.

It seemed to Audrey as though she had never passed a more uncomfortable three weeks than those that followed that unfortunate talk in the Brail lanes; and, in spite of all her efforts to appear as though nothing had happened, her looks and gravity were noticed by both Mrs. Ross and Geraldine.

'I told your father that it was a chill,' observed Mrs. Ross, on more than one occasion. 'She is growing thin, and her eyes are so heavy in the morning. There is nothing worse than a suppressed cold,' she went on anxiously, for even a small ailment in one of her children always called forth her motherly solicitude.

But Geraldine held another opinion. Audrey never took cold; she had often got wet through in Scotland, and it had never hurt her. She thought it more probable that Audrey was troubled about something—perhaps she missed Michael, or—then she paused, and looked at her mother with significance—perhaps, who knows? she might even be a little hurt at Mr. Blake's desertion. For a certain little bird—that fabulous winged purveyor of gossip, dear to the feminine mind—had whispered into young Mrs. Harcourt's ear a most curious story. It was said that Mr. Blake had fallen deeply in love with a Cornish beauty, a certain Miss Frances Hackett, and that his moody looks were all owing to this.

'Edith has seen her,' went on Geraldine, as she repeated this story with immense relish; 'she is a pretty little thing, a dark-eyed brunette. The Hacketts are very wealthy people, and they say Miss Frances will have a few thousand pounds of her own; so he will be lucky if he gets her. Perhaps the père Hackett is obdurate, and this may account for Mr. Blake's gloom—for he is certainly very bad company just now.'

'Your father thinks he looks very ill; he was speaking to me about him last night. It is wonderful what a fancy he has taken to him.'

'I think we all like him,' returned Geraldine, who could afford to praise him now her fears about Audrey were removed. 'Miss Frances might do worse for herself. He is very clever—a rising young man, as Percy says—and then he is so handsome: a girl might well lose her heart to him.'

Mrs. Ross was quite willing to regard Mr. Blake as Miss Frances' suitor—an unhappy lover was sure to excite her warmest sympathy—but she was a little shocked and scandalised at Geraldine's hint.