Richard came from his bedroom feeling feverish and heavy about the eyes next morning. It was but a just judgment on the physical part of him, he imagined, for the emotional debauch of yesterday. He ate his breakfast in solitude, staring morosely out of the window, and watching the clouds move across the sky. Depression had followed on exaltation, and he was moved to regard the passion of yesterday in a somewhat more stern and moral light. No, he would not meet Bess on Thursday. If she were in trouble she could come to him at Rodenham and he would help her. Heavens, if his escapade came to Miss Jilian’s ears there would be excitement enough for him in the home of the Hardacres! He would go and see Jilian that very morning. Her presence would chasten him and enable him to realize more acutely the disloyalty of his attraction towards poor Bess.
Probably Miss Hardacre was puzzled by her betrothed’s melancholy as they walked on the terrace that day with Jilian’s two spaniels playing about her feet. The lady’s quick wits were soon at work to discover the meaning of her dear Richard’s moodiness. Had she been oversharp with him concerning poor Mary Sugg? Jeffray smiled at her with genuine candor, and confessed that the parson’s daughter had nothing to do with his depression. He was vexed with a headache; so much Miss Hardacre could cajole from him, and it was enough to enable her to be sympathetic.
“La, Richard,” she confessed, regarding him very gravely, “you look quite feverish and ill. Would you like to lie down in the house? Quiet, Tib! Down Tobe! your master has a headache. Drat the dogs; how noisy they are, to be sure!”
Miss Hardacre flicked her handkerchief at the spaniels, who, imagining that the lady was challenging them to a game, yapped and growled with greater vigor.
“Deuce take the dogs!”
Richard had his hand to his head.
“Don’t vex yourself, Jilian,” he said, “it is nothing, I thank you.”
“You look very white, Richard.”
“It is the megrims—perhaps—”
Some sudden suspicion seemed to seize upon Miss Hardacre’s heart. She looked at her betrothed keenly, with an anxious hardening of her eyes and mouth.