"If it is fancy, it is just as good as reality. She was pining when we were here before, until we went down to Brierley; and she will lose all she has gained in her travelling if we keep her here now."
"Well—I'll see what I can do," said Mr. Copley, rising from the table. "When is St. Leger coming back?"
"How should I know? I know nothing at all of his purposes but what he told us."
"Have you thrown him over?"
"I never took him up."
"Then you are more of a goose than I thought you. He'll be caught by that fair friend of yours, before he gets out of Italy. Good morning!"
Mr. Copley hurried away; and Dolly was left to her doubts. What could so interest and hold him in a place where he had no official business, where his home was not, and he had no natural associations? Was it the attraction of mere pleasure, or was it pleasure under that mischievous, false face of gain, which men delight in and call speculation. And from speculation proper, carried on among the business haunts of men, there is not such a very wide step in the nature of things to the green level of the gaming-table. True, many men indulge in the one variety who have a horror of the other; but Dolly's father, she knew, had a horror of neither. Stocks, or dice, what did it matter? and in both varieties the men who played with him, she knew too, would help their play with wine. Against these combined powers, what was she? And what was to become of them all?
Part of the question was answered at dinner that evening. Mr. Copley announced that Brierley Cottage was unoccupied and that he had retaken it for them.
"Brierley!" cried Mrs. Copley. "Brierley! Are we going back there again! Frank, do you mean that we are to spend all our lives apart in future?"
"Not at all, my dear! If you will be so good as to stay with me, I shall be very happy."