CHAPTER XXX.
Caroline Ryder went to the gate of the Grove, and stayed there two hours; but, of course, no Griffith came.
She returned the next night, and the next; and then she gave it up, and awaited an explanation. None came, and she was bitterly disappointed, and indignant.
She began to hate Griffith, and to conceive a certain respect, and even a tepid friendship, for the other woman he had insulted.
Another clew to this change of feeling is to be found in a word she let drop in talking to another servant. "My mistress," said she, "bears it like a man."
In fact, Mrs. Gaunt's conduct at this period was truly noble.
She suffered months of torture, months of grief; but the high-spirited creature hid it from the world, and maintained a sad but high composure.
She wore her black, for she said, "How do I know he is alive?" She retrenched her establishment, reduced her expenses two thirds, and busied herself in works of charity and religion.
Her desolate condition attracted a gentleman who had once loved her, and now esteemed and pitied her profoundly,—Sir George Neville.
He was still unmarried, and she was the cause; so far at least as this: she had put him out of conceit with the other ladies at that period when he had serious thoughts of marriage: and the inclination to marry at all had not since returned.