Ovington's Bank

by Stanley John Weyman

“When?”

With every day of the past fortnight the question had confronted her with growing insistence. Now, in this idle hour, with the house silent about her, with nothing to distract her thoughts, it rose before her, grim as the outlook. It would not be denied, it came between her and the page, it forced itself upon her, it called for, nay, it insisted upon, an answer. When?

There was no longer any hope that the Squire would regain his sight, no longer any fear for his general health. He was as well as he ever would be, as well able to bear the disclosure. Delay on that ground was a plea which could no longer avail her or deceive her. Then, when? Or rather, why not now? Her conscience told her, as it had told her often of late, that she was playing the coward, proving false to her word, betraying Clement—Clement whom she loved, and whom, craven as she was, she feared to acknowledge.

Then, when? Surely now, or not at all.

Alas, the longer she dwelt on the avowal she must make, the more appalling the ordeal appeared. Her father, indeed, had been more gentle of late; that walk on the hill had brought them closer together, and since then he had shown himself more human. Glimpses of sympathy, even of affection, had peeped through the chinks of his harshness. But how difficult was the position! She must own to stolen meetings, to underhand practices, to things disreputable; she must proclaim, maid as she was, her love. And her love for whom? A stranger, and worse than a stranger—a nobody. Then apart from her father’s contempt for the class to which Clement belonged, and with which he was less in sympathy than with the peasants on his lands, his prejudice against the Ovingtons was itself a thing to frighten her! Hardly a day passed that he did not utter some jibe at their expense, or some word that betrayed how sorely Arthur’s defection rankled. And then his blindness—that added the last touch of deceit to her conduct, that made worse and more clandestine what had been bad before. As she thought of it, and imagined the avowal and the way in which he would take it, the color left her cheeks and she shivered with fright. She did not know how she could do it, or how she could live through it. He would lose all faith in her. He would pluck from his heart even that affection for her which she had begun to discern under the mask of his sternness—to discern and to cherish.

Yet time pressed, she could no longer palter with her love, she must be true to Clement now or false, she must suffer for him now or play the coward. She had given him her word. Was she to go back on it?

Oh, never! never! she thought, and pressed her hands together. Those spring days when she had walked with him beside the brook, when his coming had been sunshine and her pulses had leapt at the sound of his footsteps, when his eyes had lured the heart from her and the touch of his lips had awakened the woman in her, when she had passed whole days and nights in sweet musings on him—oh, never!

No, he had urged her to be brave, to be true, to be worthy of him; and she must be. She must face all for him. And it would be but for a time. He had said that her father might separate them, and would separate them: but if they were true to one another——

“Miss! Miss Josina!”

She turned, her dream cut short, and saw Molly, the kitchen-maid, standing in the doorway. She was surprised, for the stillness of a Sunday afternoon held the house—it was the servants’ hour, and one at which they were seldom to be found, even when wanted. “What is it?” she asked, and stood up, alarmed. “Has my father called?” He might have rapped, and deep in thought she might not have heard him.