Thorold's sense of honour was exceptionally high; in spite of his cold, reserved manner, he was extremely sensitive; the thought that he had been over-mastered and carried away by passion, even though it had been momentary, humiliated and shocked him.
In some of his ideas Thorold was somewhat behind his generation, and different from other men. He held old-fashioned and somewhat obsolete views on the subject of love, and his reverence for women savoured of the old days of chivalry.
In his hard-working life he had been brought little into contact with them. He had no time for society. An evening at the Red House with his old friends, Althea and Doreen, was the only relaxation he had allowed himself. But, in spite of his self-repression, Thorold Chaytor was intensely human, and, like other men, he yearned for the joys of wife and child.
"Man is not made to live alone," he would say to himself, drearily, as he sat late at night by his solitary fireside; and, though no visionary, the thought of some fair young face would haunt him persistently. "I wonder if I ever shall have a wife?" he would say to himself, as he looked into the red, glowing caverns before him. "I shall be hard to please. I should like her to be a younger and prettier Althea. Oh, she is a noble creature, Althea! She would have been a treasure to any man, but I fancy—I have always fancied—that she gave away her heart to Everard Ward. Well, who knows what may happen, when I have earned my fortune?" And then he smiled a little bitterly, as he opened his books again. Thorold's strong, intense nature took nothing lightly. If he loved, it was with his whole heart and soul. Alas! for him, the small, pale face and dark, spirituelle eyes of his little Undine were now all the world to him. From the first he had recognised her sweetness and intelligence.
How he had longed to hold her to his heart, and comfort her with the assurance of his great love! How his nerves had thrilled with passionate tenderness as he ministered to her, as though she were a little helpless child! And all the time his heart had, with mute reverence, worshipped her.
"I must not think of myself or my own happiness," he said to himself, as he walked down the hill in the darkness that night. "My days have been always joyless, and what does a little more pain matter? It is of her I am thinking. God forbid that I should cloud her bright young life with any of my cares or perplexity. My little Waveney, I would suffer a hundred-fold more willingly than see you bearing my burdens."
Poor Thorold! In his generous self-renunciation he was making a grievous mistake, though he little guessed it; for woman's nature was terra incognita to him. Generosity and self-abnegation are not solely masculine virtues, and there are women to whom any form of self-sacrifice for the sake of a beloved object is simply joy and happiness; who care nothing for waiting and poverty, if they can only lean on some strong arm and be at rest.
But Thorold was not wise enough to know this, so he formed a singular resolution. He would see Waveney again. He would watch her closely. Ah! he loved her so dearly that he felt he could almost read her thoughts. If she received him with her old frankness of manner, if there were no trace of consciousness in look or tone, he would know that his impulsive speech had not reached her ear, and he would content himself with being more guarded for the future.
But if, as some subtle instinct told him, there should be some undefinable change in her, some new veil of shyness, he would be certain that she had heard him too well, and in this case it was his full intention to make her understand in some way the difficulty of his position. "It is impossible for me to marry for a great many years. I am too heavily handicapped." Some such words as these he would say, and then he would leave her, but not until he had apologized to her with all the humility of which he was capable. And when he had arrived at this quixotic resolution Thorold was more at peace.
They would not meet just yet, for Waveney was unable to leave her room for some days, and spent most of her time, as Althea informed Thorold when he came in one evening, in sleeping like a baby.