‘I have so set my heart on this,’ Mrs. Pierston went on, ‘that I have not been able to sleep of late, for I have feared I might drop off suddenly before she is yours, and lose the comfort of seeing you actually united. Your being so kind to me in old times has made me so sure that she will find a good husband in you, that I am over anxious, I know. Indeed, I have not liked to let her know quite how anxious I am.’
Thus they talked till Jocelyn bade her goodnight, it being noticeable that Mrs. Pierston, chastened by her illnesses, maintained no longer any reserve on her gladness to acquire him as her son-in-law; and her feelings destroyed any remaining scruples he might have had from perceiving that Avice’s consent was rather an obedience than a desire. As he went downstairs, and found Avice awaiting his descent, he wondered if anything had occurred here during his absence to give Mrs. Pierston new uneasiness about the marriage, but it was an inquiry he could not address to a girl whose actions could alone be the cause of such uneasiness.
He looked round for her as he supped, but though she had come into the room with him she was not there now. He remembered her telling him that she had had supper with her mother, and Jocelyn sat on quietly musing and sipping his wine for something near half-an-hour. Wondering then for the first time what had become of her, he rose and went to the door. Avice was quite near him after all—only standing at the front door as she had been doing when he came, looking into the light of the full moon, which had risen since his arrival. His sudden opening of the dining-room door seemed to agitate her.
‘What is it, dear?’ he asked.
‘As mother is much better and doesn’t want me, I ought to go and see somebody I promised to take a parcel to—I feel I ought. And yet, as you have just come to see me—I suppose you don’t approve of my going out while you are here?’
‘Who is the person?’
‘Somebody down that way,’ she said indefinitely. ‘It is not very far off. I am not afraid—I go out often by myself at night hereabout.’
He reassured her good-humouredly. ‘If you really wish to go, my dear, of course I don’t object. I have no authority to do that till tomorrow, and you know that if I had it I shouldn’t use it.’
‘O but you have! Mother being an invalid, you are in her place, apart from—to-morrow.’
‘Nonsense, darling. Run across to your friend’s house by all means if you want to.’