The envelope contained another envelope in Cytherea’s handwriting, addressed to ‘—— Manston, Esq., Old Manor House.’ Inside this was the note she had written to the steward after her detention in his house by the thunderstorm—
‘KNAPWATER HOUSE,
September 20th.
‘I find I cannot meet you at seven o’clock by the waterfall as I promised. The emotion I felt made me forgetful of realities. ‘C. GRAYE.’
Miss Aldclyffe had not written a line, and, by the unvarying rule observable when words are not an absolute necessity, her silence seemed ten times as convincing as any expression of opinion could have been.
He then, step by step, recalled all the conversation on the subject of Cytherea’s feelings that had passed between himself and Miss Aldclyffe in the afternoon, and by a confusion of thought, natural enough under the trying experience, concluded that because the lady was truthful in her portraiture of effects, she must necessarily be right in her assumption of causes. That is, he was convinced that Cytherea—the hitherto-believed faithful Cytherea—had, at any rate, looked with something more than indifference upon the extremely handsome face and form of Manston.
Did he blame her, as guilty of the impropriety of allowing herself to love the newcomer in the face of his not being free to return her love? No; never for a moment did he doubt that all had occurred in her old, innocent, impulsive way; that her heart was gone before she knew it—before she knew anything, beyond his existence, of the man to whom it had flown. Perhaps the very note enclosed to him was the result of first reflection. Manston he would unhesitatingly have called a scoundrel, but for one strikingly redeeming fact. It had been patent to the whole parish, and had come to Edward’s own knowledge by that indirect channel, that Manston, as a married man, conscientiously avoided Cytherea after those first few days of his arrival during which her irresistibly beautiful and fatal glances had rested upon him—his upon her.
Taking from his coat a creased and pocket-worn envelope containing Cytherea’s letter to himself, Springrove opened it and read it through. He was upbraided therein, and he was dismissed. It bore the date of the letter sent to Manston, and by containing within it the phrase, ‘All the day long I have been thinking,’ afforded justifiable ground for assuming that it was written subsequently to the other (and in Edward’s sight far sweeter one) to the steward.
But though he accused her of fickleness, he would not doubt the genuineness, in its kind, of her partiality for him at Budmouth. It was a short and shallow feeling—not perfect love:
‘Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds.’
But it was not flirtation; a feeling had been born in her and had died. It would be well for his peace of mind if his love for her could flit away so softly, and leave so few traces behind.