Garth found his life anything but easy just now; to be sure, ruin no longer stared him in the face, but his debt was a secret torment to him, and fretted his proud nature with a sense of positive injury.
He would fain have drawn out as little as possible of the sum placed for his benefit, but his needs were pressing. Scarcity of orders, the rise in the men's wages, the heavily-freighted accounts of the cottages he had so lavishly provided for his workmen, had obliged him to expend already seven or eight hundred pounds of the money. The quarry was now in good working order again; and in a few months the young master of Warstdale trusted that he would be enabled to repay the first instalment of the debt; and then, and not till then, would he open his lips to speak any words of love.
Garth was capable of keeping any resolution that he had formed. It was no fear of betraying himself that made him avoid Queenie; but the girl's presence was so sweet to him, and the longing to tell what was in his heart was so great, that the pain of such silence was unendurable to him.
And so he quietly withdrew himself, and went on with his daily work as though no such thoughts were his; and Queenie meekly accepted her banishment and bore Langley's reproaches on her unsociability as patiently as she could, until Langley discovered how matters were, and held her peace ever afterward like a wise woman, and petted and made much of the girl when she came down to the cottage.
And Queenie saw little of Garth, only lifting her brown eyes timidly to his face when she met him in the village, and he stopped to exchange a greeting with her and Emmie; but he never once said, "Why do we see you so seldom at Church-Stile House?" but only asked kindly after hers and the child's welfare, and bade her wrap up Emmie and cherish her now the bitter winter weather had set in.
Queenie ate her Christmas dinner at the vicarage, with only Mr. Logan and Miss Cosie; and her New Year's day was spent at Juniper Lodge. The Claytons were not present on either of these occasions; Garth had gone up to London to see Cathy, and Langley had spent both days at Karldale Grange in Gertrude Chester's sick room. A long season of suffering that no skill could avert or tenderness alleviate had set in for the unhappy lady, and Langley's services were in constant requisition.
Now and then Mr. Chester came over to Hepshaw. He always paid a visit to the cottage, and would go up, as a matter of course, into Emmie's little room, and sit for a long time by the empty bed where his darling had slept her little life away, and then he would come sorrowfully down again, and he and Queenie would talk softly of the child and her endearing ways.
These visits always made Queenie feel very sad. Time had not mitigated the father's heavy loss. He still mourned heavily for his little Nan. His florid face looked pale and haggard. A few threads of grey were clearly perceptible in the golden brown beard; but his eyes always lighted up with a look of tenderness when Queenie mentioned his wife.
"Ah, my poor Gertie," he would say, sorrowfully. "You would scarcely know her, Miss Marriott, she is so changed; she suffers so terribly. Langley will have told you; and yet since the death of our little darling there has never been a word or breath of complaint. She endures her worst agonies with fortitude; even Dr. Stewart marvels at her, and says he had never witnessed greater stoicism. It is only 'Hold my hand, Harry,' or 'I shall soon be relieved, dear husband, when this attack has passed,' just that, and nothing more."
"Yes, indeed; Langley cannot say enough in her praise, she says her self-control is wonderful."