“If,” she cried impetuously, “it is to take me back to those——”
“On the contrary,” he replied. He was not unwilling to wound one who had shown herself so unexpectedly capable of offence. “That is quite past,” he continued. “There is no longer any question of that. And even the course I suggest is not without its disadvantages. It may not, at first sight, be more acceptable to you than returning to your home. But I trust you have learnt a lesson, and will now be guided.” After saying which he coughed and hesitated, and at length, after twice pulling up his cravat, “I think,” he said—“the matter is somewhat delicate—that I had better write what I have in my mind.”
Under the dead weight of depression which had succeeded to passion, curiosity stirred faintly in her. But—
“As you please,” she said.
“The more,” he continued stiffly, “as in the immediate present there is nothing to be done. And therefore there is no haste. Until this”—he made a wry face, the thing was so hateful to him—“this inquiry is at an end, and you are free to leave, nothing but preliminaries can be dealt with; those settled, however, I think there should be no delay. But you shall hear from me within the week.”
“Very well.” And after a slight pause, “That is all?”
“That is all, I think.”
Yet he did not go. And she continued to stand with her shoulder turned towards him. He was a man of strong prejudices, and the habit of command had rendered him in some degree callous. But he was neither unkind by nature, nor, in spite of the story Walterson had told of him, inhuman in practice. To leave a young girl thus, to leave her without a word of leave-taking or regret, seemed even to him, now it came to the point, barbarous. The road stretched lonely on either side of them, the woods were brown and sad and almost leafless, the lake below them mirrored the unchanging grey above, or lost itself in dreary mist. And he remembered her in surroundings so different! He remembered how she had been reared, by whom encircled, amid what plenitude! And though he did not guess that the slender figure standing thus mute and forlorn would haunt him by night and by day for weeks to come, and harry and torment him with dumb reproaches—he still had not the heart to go without one gentler word.
And so “No, there is one thing,” he said, his voice shaking very slightly, “I would like to add—I would like you to know. It is that after next week I shall be at Rysby in Cartmel—Rysby Hall—for about a month. It is not more than two miles from the foot of the lake, and if you are still here and need advice——”
“Thank you.”