‘Listen to me, Granny,’ he began slowly; ‘I am very much annoyed that he—or anyone—should have joined that lady’s name and mine together. Granny, if you have any friendship for me, if you would do me a kindness, you will never let a word of what you have heard come from your lips.’
As he stood looking down on the Queen of the Cadgers the light from the evening sun was full upon her marked features and the gold ear-rings in her ears.
‘Ye needna fear, Whanland,’ she said simply.
‘I will tell you why,’ burst out Gilbert, a sudden impulse to confidence rushing to his heart like a wave; ‘it is true, Granny—that is the reason. If I cannot marry her I shall never be happy again.’
Sitting alone that night, he asked himself why he should have spoken.
What power, good or evil, is answerable for the sudden gusts of change that shake us? Why do we sometimes turn traitor to our own character? How is it that forces, foreign to everything in our nature, will, at some undreamed-of instant, sweep us from the attitude we have maintained all our lives? The answer is that our souls are more sensitive than our brains.
But Gilbert, as he thought of his act, did not blame himself. Neither did eternal wisdom, which watched from afar and saw everything.
[[1]]Endure.