“That cannot be said of me!” Henrietta retorted, smiling.
But her colour was high. She remembered how she had descended those steps.
“No?” Mrs. Gilson responded. “When you bring the bad on yourself and the good is just a gift?”
“A gift?”
“Ay! And one for which you’re not over grateful!” with all her wonted grimness. “But that’s the way of the world! Grind as you will, miss, it’s the lower mill-stone suffers, and the upper that cries out! Still——”
Mr. Sutton heard no more; for Henrietta had passed with the landlady into the house; and he turned himself about with a full heart and walked away. He had done so much for her! He had risked his livelihood, his patron, his position, to save her! He had paced this strand with every fibre in him tingling with pity for her! Ay, and when all others had put her out of their thoughts! And for return, she went laughing into the house and paid no heed to him—to the poor parson.
True, he had expected little. But he had expected more than this. He had not hoped for much; or it is possible that he had not resigned the opportunity of bringing her back. But he had hoped for more than this—for the tearful thanks of a pair of bright eyes, for the clasp of a grateful hand, for a word or two that might remain in his memory always.
And bitterness welled up in his heart, and at the first gate, at which he could stand unseen, he let his face fall on his hands. He cursed the barriers of caste, the cold pride of these aristocrats, even his own pallid insignificance—since he had as hungry a heart as panted in the breast of the handsomest dandy. He could not hate her; she was young and thoughtless, and in spite of himself his heart made excuses for her. But he hated the world, and the system, and the miserable conventions that shackled him; ay, hated them as bitterly for the time as the dark-faced gipsy girl whose eyes he found upon him, when at last a step caused him to look up.
She grinned at him slyly, and he gave back the look with resentment. He had met her once or twice in the lanes and about the inn, and marked her for a rustic beauty of a savage type. Now he waited frowning for her to pass. But she only smiled more insolently, and lifting her voice, sang:
“But still she replied, sir,