“I am certain of it,” Amelius answered. With that he left the room.
Rufus looked after him sadly. Sympathy and sorrow were expressed in every line of his rugged face. “My poor boy! how will he bear it, if she says No? What will become of him, if she says Yes?” He rubbed his hand irritably across his forehead, like a man whose own thoughts were repellent to him. In a moment more, he plunged into his pockets, and drew out again the letters introducing him to the secretaries of public institutions. “If there’s salvation for Amelius,” he said, “I reckon I shall find it here.”
CHAPTER 4
The medium of correspondence between Amelius and Regina’s maid was an old woman who kept a shop for the sale of newspapers and periodicals, in a by-street not far from Mr. Farnaby’s house. From this place his letters were delivered to the maid, under cover of the morning newspapers—and here he found the answers waiting for him later in the day. “If Rufus could only have taken her out for a walk, I might have seen Regina this afternoon,” thought Amelius. “As it is, I may have to wait till to-morrow, or later still. And then, there’s the sovereign to Phoebe.” He sighed as he thought of the fee. Sovereigns were becoming scarce in our young Socialist’s purse.
Arriving in sight of the newsvendor’s shop, Amelius noticed a man leaving it, who walked away towards the farther end of the street. When he entered the shop himself a minute afterwards, the woman took up a letter from the counter. “A young man has just left this for you,” she said.
Amelius recognised the maid’s handwriting on the address. The man whom he had seen leaving the shop was Phoebe’s messenger.
He opened the letter. Her mistress, Phoebe explained, was too much flurried to be able to write. The master had astonished the whole household by appearing among them at least three hours before the time at which he was accustomed to leave his place of business. He had found “Mrs. Ormond” (otherwise Regina’s friend and correspondent, Cecilia) paying a visit to his niece, and had asked to speak with her in private, before she took leave. The result was an invitation to Regina, from Mrs. Ormond, to stay for a little while at her house in the neighbourhood of Harrow. The ladies were to leave London together, in Mrs. Ormond’s carriage, that afternoon. Under stress of strong persuasion, on the part of her uncle and aunt as well as her friend, Regina had ended in giving way. But she had not forgotten the interests of Amelius. She was willing to see him privately on the next day, provided he left London by the train which reached Harrow soon after eleven in the forenoon. If it happened to rain, then he must put off his journey until the first fine day, arriving in any case at the same hour. The place at which he was to wait was described to him; and with these instructions the letter ended.
The rapidity with which Mr. Farnaby had carried out his resolution to separate the lovers placed the weakness of Regina’s character before Amelius in a new and startling light. Why had she not stood on her privileges, as a woman who had arrived at years of discretion, and refused to leave London until she had first heard what her lover had to say? Amelius had left his American friend, feeling sure that Regina’s decision would be in his favour, when she was called upon to choose between the man who was ready to marry her, and the man who was nothing but her uncle by courtesy. For the first time, he now felt that his own confident anticipations might, by bare possibility, deceive him. He returned to his lodgings, in such a state of depression, that compassionate Rufus insisted on taking him out to dinner, and hurried him off afterwards to the play. Thoroughly prostrated, Amelius submitted to the genial influence of his friend. He had not even energy enough to feel surprised when Rufus stopped, on their way to the tavern, at a dingy building adorned with a Grecian portico, and left a letter and a card in charge of a servant at the side-door.
The next day, by a happy interposition of Fortune, proved to be a day without rain. Amelius followed his instructions to the letter. A little watery sunshine showed itself as he left the station at Harrow. His mind was still in such a state of doubt and disturbance that it drew from superstition a faint encouragement to hope. He hailed the feeble November sunlight as a good omen.