'Would you like a companion for the first stage of your journey?' Felicia said; 'if so, Maud will ride with you, and the children and I will start later, and meet her on the way home.' This was, in fact, a kind device of Felicia's—one of the rash things which people do when they are completely perplexed, in a sort of wild hope that some good may come of it, rather than with any precise design. Felicia had come with distressing distinctness to recognise the full gravity of the position and to feel how dreadfully she had been to blame. She had done all that one woman can to lead another to fall in love, and she had succeeded only too well. Her little scheme of happiness for her two friends was marred by an impediment which she had altogether overlooked. Sutton's obduracy had never occurred to her as a serious impediment, yet now he seemed hopelessly unimpressible. Bitterly Felicia reproached herself for all her part in the transaction; but of what use was self-reproach? There was the terrible result, beyond the reach alike of penitence or redress. Maud's heart, Felicia knew instinctively, was lost—her very silence on the topic betrayed the consciousness of something to conceal. There was a sort of entreating air about her that seemed to cry for pity. More than once Felicia had taken her to her arms and embraced her tenderly—she could not have said why, but yet she knew. Maud, with her joyousness gone, and battling with a silent sorrow, seemed to her to have a touch of pathos which roused all the latent melancholy of Felicia's nature into activity. It was one of those sad things in life before which her fortitude completely failed. Ruefully did she vow, now that vowing was of no use, that her first attempt at match-making should be her last. At any rate she sent the two riders off together on this last ride, in the faint hope that something might occur to bring the tardy wooer to a right frame of mind.
CHAPTER XXI.
MAUD'S SECRET.
——In the glance,
A moment's glance, of meeting eyes,
His heart stood still in sudden trance—
He trembled with a sweet surprise;
All in the waning light she stood,
The star of perfect womanhood.
That summer eve his heart was light,
With lighter step he trod the ground,
And life was fairer in his sight,
And music was in every sound:
He bless'd the world where there could be
So beautiful a thing as she.
The western horizon was all ablaze, and the sun's rays came slanting through the gloom of the Rhododendron Forest, as Sutton and his companion rode down the mountain-side towards the plains.
Did Felicia's wishes and hopes breathe a subtle influence around them, which drew their hearts together and opened to each the destiny which awaited it? Did the sweet, serious look with which she bade Sutton farewell speak to his eye, for years accustomed to watch for her unspoken commands, of something in which he had failed to please her, to understand her desire, to do or to be exactly what she wanted? Was there some shade of reserve, constraint, dissatisfaction in Felicia's manner that aroused his attention and led him to explore his companion with an anxious curiosity which usually he was far from feeling? Or was it something in Maud, a causeless embarrassment, a scarcely concealed trepidation, a manner at once sad and excited, the flush that, as Desvœux had told her in the morning, gave her cheek more than its accustomed beauty, which, before they had been ten minutes on the road, had sent such a flash of intelligence through Sutton's being,—which came upon him like an inspiration, clear, cogent, indisputable, and only curious in not having been understood before?
Be that as it may, Sutton suddenly found himself in an altogether different mood and in altogether different company to that which he had figured to himself for the first stage of his journey. Maud had all at once become supremely interesting and infinitely more beautiful than he had ever yet conceived her. She was no longer the mere excitable, romantic child, whose nascent feelings and ideas might be watched with half-amused curiosity, but a being whose brightness and innocence were allied with the most exquisite pathos, and who was ready to cast at the first worthy shrine all the wealth of an impulsive, ardent, tender nature. As for Maud, she was too excited, too profoundly moved, too much the prey of feelings of which she knew neither the true measure nor the full force, to be able to analyse her thoughts or to be completely mistress of herself.
Dissimulation was an art of which life had not as yet taught her the necessity, or experience familiarised the use. The unconscious hypocrisy with which some natures from the very outset, perhaps all natures later on in life, veil so much of themselves from the outer world, had never occurred to her as a possible or necessary means of self-protection in an existence which till now had been too simple, childish and innocent to call for concealment. She fixed her clear, honest eyes on her interrogator, whoever he was, be the question what it might, and he knew that it was the truth, pure, simple and complete, that she was telling. Each phase of feeling wrote itself on her expression almost before Maud herself had realised it, certainly long before she knew enough about it to attempt to conceal it from the world. The feeble attempts at deception, which the accidents of life had from time to time forced upon her, had proved such absolute failures as merely to warn her of the uselessness of everything of the kind, even if it had occurred to her to wish to deceive. Her courtesy was the courtesy of sincerity, and she had none other to offer. Those whom she disliked, accordingly, pronounced her rude, and it was fortunate that they were very few in number. Her friends, on the contrary, and their name was legion, read, and knew that they read, to the very bottom of her heart. Now, for the first time in her life, she was distinctly conscious of a secret which it would be misery and humiliation to divulge, but for the custody of which neither nature nor art had supplied her with any effectual means. Silence was the natural resource, but silence is sometimes more eloquent than speech. Whether she spoke or whether she held her peace, Maud felt a terrified conviction that she would betray herself, should it occur to Sutton to pay the least attention to her state of mind.