Olive Deane had three days' leave of absence from her duties at Easter. She went by invitation to spend the time with her aunt and cousin at Pembridge. She had seen neither of them during the two months she had been at Lady Dudgeon's. Matthew Kelvin had once or twice sent his chief clerk to transact business with the baronet, but had never put in an appearance himself. Could it be that he dreaded the possibility of meeting Miss Lloyd? was the question Olive sometimes asked herself; but it was a question to which there was no likelihood of her ever obtaining an answer.
Olive's heart fluttered strangely as she knocked at the familiar door. Absence had in no wise weakened her love for her cousin. Watered with her secret tears, its roots seemed only to grow stronger and to cling more tightly round her heart. "Why should my life be made miserable for the love of this man?" she sometimes asked herself. "He cares nothing for me--he never will care anything for me." But in other moods she would say: "He will learn to love me yet. Such a love as mine must have a magnetism in it strong enough to draw to itself the object of its desires."
But how was it possible that her cousin could grow to love her when she was separated from him by weeks and months of absence? She must devise some scheme that would bring her under the same roof with him again; that was her only chance. Once let Miss Lloyd become engaged either to Mr. Pomeroy or Captain Dayrell--once let Matthew Kelvin realize the fact that, safe in the love of another man, Eleanor was for ever beyond his reach, and she--Olive--would not stop another day at Stammars. Some excuse she would find, some reason she would invent, which would make her once more an inmate of her cousin's house. Now, to-day, when she took her aunt's hand and kissed her, she peered anxiously into her face to read whatever signs might be written there. Was her health much worse than usual? Was there any prospect that before long this poor ailing creature might need her services as nurse? Surely--surely, she could not linger on in this way for ever! She wished no harm to her aunt; but one cannot always help one's thoughts. To-day, however, Mrs. Kelvin looked pretty much as she had looked for the last three or four years--neither better nor worse.
She received her niece very kindly. Matthew was out on business, so there was time for an hour's confidential talk before he came back. One of Mrs. Kelvin's first questions had reference to Mr. Pomeroy; was he comfortable, and did he suit Sir Thomas? Then she was interested in hearing Olive's account of the gay doings in London, and genuinely pleased to find that Lady Dudgeon and her niece agreed so well together.
After that the old lady began to talk about her son. There had been a change in him of late, and it troubled her. He was not bodily ill, she thought; but he seemed to have something on his mind. He was restless and irritable, and seemed to crave for company and excitement more than he had ever done before. When he was talking about one thing he always seemed to be thinking about another.
"He has not read a line to me for I don't know how long," sighed the old lady. "I can see that his heart is not in it, and so I don't care to ask him."
Mr. Kelvin came in while they were still talking about him. His face brightened the moment he saw Olive, and her heart whispered to her, "He is glad to see me!" He shook hands with her, and patted her cheek as he might have done that of a child.
"Your roses were always white ones, Nolly," he said, "and London smoke has certainly done nothing to turn them into red ones."
Olive's anxious eyes were not long in verifying what Mrs. Kelvin had said about her son. He certainly looked more worn and anxious than she had ever seen him look before. He seemed to have grown five years older in a few weeks.
"Will he tell me, I wonder, what has gone amiss with him?" whispered Olive to herself. "Can his anxiety have anything to do with Eleanor Lloyd? or is it common business cares that are troubling his mind?"