‘It was Mr. Babb?’ asked Barbara, suddenly turning and looking steadily at her.
Here was an opportunity offered a poor, weak creature. Eve trembled, and after a moment’s vacillation fell into the pitfall unconsciously dug for her by her sister. ‘It was Mr. Babb, dear Barbara.’
Miss Jordan said no more, her bosom was heaving. Perhaps she could not speak. She was angry, troubled, distracted; angry at the gross imposition practised by Jasper in pretending to leave the place, whilst lurking about it to hold secret meetings with her sister; troubled she was because she feared that Eve had connived at his proceedings, and had lost her heart to him—troubled also because she could not tell to what this would lead; distracted she was, because she did not know what steps to take. Before she reached home she had made up her mind, and on reaching Morwell she acted on it with promptitude, leaving Eve to go to her room or stay below as suited her best.
She went direct to her father. He was sitting up, looking worse and distressed; his pale forehead was beaded with perspiration; his shaking hand clutched the table, then relaxed its hold, then clutched again.
‘Are you feeling worse, papa?’
‘No,’ he answered, without looking at her, but with his dazed eyes directed through the window. ‘No—only for black thoughts. They come flying to me. If you stand at evening under a great rock, as soon as the sun sets you see from all quarters the ravens flying towards it, uttering doleful cries, and they enter into the clefts and disappear for the night. The whole rock all night is alive with ravens. So is it with me. As my day declines the sorrows and black thoughts come back to lodge in me, and torment me with their clawing and pecking and croaking. There is no driving them away. They come back.’
‘Dear papa,’ said Barbara, ‘I am afraid I must add to them. I have something very unpleasant to communicate.’
‘I suppose,’ said Mr. Jordan peevishly, ‘you are out of coffee, or the lemons are mouldy, or the sheets have been torn on the thorn hedge. These matters do not trouble me.’ He signed with his finger. ‘They are like black spots in the air, but instead of floating they fly, and they all fly one way—towards me.’