CHAPTER VI. ERMINE'S RESOLUTION

"For as his hand the weather steers, So thrive I best 'twixt joys and tears, And all the year have some green ears."--H. VAUGHAN.

Alison had not been wrong in her presentiment that the second interview would be more trying than the first. The exceeding brightness and animation of Ermine's countenance, her speaking eyes, unchanged complexion, and lively manner--above all, the restoration of her real substantial self--had so sufficed and engrossed Colin Keith in the gladness of their first meeting that he had failed to comprehend her helpless state; and already knowing her to be an invalid, not entirely recovered from her accident, he was only agreeably surprised to see the beauty of face he had loved so long, retaining all its vivacity of expression. And when he met Alison the next morning with a cordial brotherly greeting and inquiry for her sister, her "Very well," and "not at all the worse for the excitement," were so hearty and ready that he could not have guessed that "well" with Ermine meant something rather relative than positive. Alison brought him a playful message from her, that since he was not going to Belfast, she should meet him with a freer conscience if he would first give her time for Rose's lessons, and, as he said, he had lived long enough with Messrs. Conrade and Co. to acknowledge the wisdom of the message. But Rose had not long been at leisure to look out for him before he made his appearance, and walked in by right, as one at home; and sitting down in his yesterday's place, took the little maiden on his knee, and began to talk to her about the lessons he had been told to wait for. What would she have done without them? He knew some people who never could leave the house quiet enough to hear one's-self speak if they were deprived of lessons. Was that the way with her? Rose laughed like a creature, her aunt said, "to whom the notion of noise at play was something strange and ridiculous; necessity has reduced her to Jacqueline Pascal's system with her pensionnaires, who were allowed to play one by one without any noise."

"But I don't play all alone," said Rose; "I play with you, Aunt Ermine, and with Violetta."

And Violetta speedily had the honour of an introduction, very solemnly gone through, in due form; Ermine, in the languid sportiveness of enjoyment of his presence and his kindness to the child, inciting Rose to present Miss Violetta Williams to Colonel Keith, an introduction that he returned with a grand military salute, at the same time as he shook the doll's inseparable fingers. "Well, Miss Violetta, and Miss Rose, when you come to live with me, I shall hope for the pleasure of teaching you to make a noise."

"What does he mean?" said Rose, turning round amazed upon her aunt.

"I am afraid he does not quite know," said Ermine, sadly.

"Nay, Ermine," said he, turning from the child, and bending over her, "you are the last who should say that. Have I not told you that there is nothing now in our way--no one with a right to object, and means enough for all we should wish, including her--? What is the matter?" he added, startled by her look.

"Ah, Colin! I thought you knew--"

"Knew what, Ermine?" with his brows drawn together.

"Knew--what I am," she said; "knew the impossibility. What, they have not told you? I thought I was the invalid, the cripple, with every one."

"I knew you had suffered cruelly; I knew you were lame," he said, breathlessly; "but--what--"

"It is more than lame," she said. "I should be better off if the fiction of the Queens of Spain were truth with me. I could not move from this chair without help. Oh, Colin! poor Colin! it was very cruel not to have prepared you for this!" she added, as he gazed at her in grief and dismay, and made a vain attempt to find the voice that would not come.

"Yes, indeed it is so," she said; "the explosion, rather than the fire, did mischief below the knee that poor nature could not repair, and I can but just stand, and cannot walk at all."

"Has anything been done--advice?" he murmured.

"Advice upon advice, so that I felt at the last almost a compensation to be out of the way of the doctors. No, nothing more can be done; and now that one is used to it, the snail is very comfortable in its shell. But I wish you could have known it sooner!" she added, seeing him shade his brow with his hand, overwhelmed.

"What you must have suffered!" he murmured.

"That is all over long ago; every year has left that further behind, and made me more content. Dear Colin, for me there is nothing to grieve."

He could not control himself, rose up, made a long stride, and passed through the open window into the garden.

"Oh, if I could only follow him," gasped Ermine, joining her hands and looking up.

"Is it because you can't walk?" said Rose, somewhat frightened, and for the first time beginning to comprehend that her joyous-tempered aunt could be a subject for pity.

"Oh! this was what I feared!" sighed Ermine. "Oh, give us strength to go through with it." Then becoming awake to the child's presence--"A little water, if you please, my dear." Then, more composedly, "Don't be frightened, my Rose; you did not know it was such a shock to find me so laid by--"

"He is in the garden walking up and down," said Rose. "May I go and tell him how much merrier you always are than Aunt Ailie?"

Poor Ermine felt anything but merry just then, but she had some experience of Rose's powers of soothing, and signed assent. So in another second Colonel Keith was met in the hasty, agonized walk by which he was endeavouring to work off his agitation, and the slender child looked wistfully up at him from dark depths of half understanding eyes--"Please, please don't be so very sorry," she said. "Aunt Ermine does not like it. She never is sorry for herself--"

"Have I shaken her--distressed her?" he asked, anxiously.

"She doesn't like you to be sorry," said Rose, looking up. "And, indeed, she does not mind it; she is such a merry aunt! Please, come in again, and see how happy we always are--"

The last words were spoken so near the window that Ermine caught them, and said, "Yes, come in, Colin, and learn not to grieve for me, or you will make me repent of my selfish gladness yesterday."

"Not grieve!" he exclaimed, "when I think of the beautiful vigorous being that used to be the life of the place--" and he would have said more but for a deprecating sign of the hand.

"Well," she said, half smiling, "it is a pity to think even of a crushed butterfly; but indeed, Colin, if you can bear to listen to me, I think I can show you that it all has been a blessing even by sight, as well as, of course, by faith. Only remember the unsatisfactoriness of our condition--the never seeing or hearing from one another after that day when Mr. Beauchamp came down on us. Did not the accident win for us a parting that was much better to remember than that state of things? Oh, the pining, weary feel as if all the world had closed on me! I do assure you it was much worse than anything that came after the burn. Yes, if I had been well and doing like others, I know I should have fretted and wearied, pined myself ill perhaps, whereas I could always tell myself that every year of your absence might be a step towards your finding me well; and when I was forced to give up that hope for myself, why then, Colin, the never seeing your name made me think you would never be disappointed and grieved as you are now. It is very merciful the way that physical trials help one through those of the mind."

"I never knew," said the Colonel; "all my aunt's latter letters spoke of your slow improvement beyond hope."

"True, in her time, I had not reached the point where I stopped. The last time I saw her I was still upstairs; and, indeed, I did not half know what I could do till I tried."

"Yes," said he, brightened by that buoyant look so remarkable in her face; "and you will yet do more, Ermine. You have convinced me that we shall be all the happier together--"

"But that was not what I meant to convince you of--" she said, faintly.

"Not what you meant, perhaps; but what it did convince me was, that you--as you are, my Ermine--are ten thousand times more to me than even as the beautiful girl, and that there never can be a happier pair than we shall be when I am your hands and feet."

Ermine sat up, and rallied all her forces, choked back the swelling of her throat, and said, "Dear Colin, it cannot be! I trusted you were understanding that when I told you how it was with me."

He could not speak from consternation.

"No," she said; "it would be wrong in me to think of it for an instant.

That you should have done so, shows--O Colin, I cannot talk of it; but it would be as ungenerous in me to consent, as it is noble of you to propose it."

"It is no such thing," he answered; "it has been the one object and thought of my life, the only hope I have had all these years."

"Exactly so," she said, struggling again to speak firmly; "and that is the very thing. You kept your allegiance to the bright, tall, walking, active girl, and it would be a shame in the scorched cripple to claim it."

"Don't call yourself names. Have I not told you that you are more than the same?"

"You do not know. You are pleased because my face is not burnt, nor grown much older, and because I can talk and laugh in the same voice still." (Oh, how it quivered!) "But it would be a wicked mockery in me to pretend to be the wife you want. Yes, I know you think you do, but that is just because my looks are so deceitful, and you have kept on thinking about me; but you must make a fresh beginning."

"You can tell me that," he said, indignantly.

"Because it is not new to me," she said; "the quarter of an hour you stood by me, with that deadly calm in your white face, was the real farewell to the young hopeful dream of that bright summer. I wish it was as calm now."

"I believed you dying then," answered he.

"Do not make me think it would have been better for you if I had been,"

she said, imploringly. "It was as much the end, and I knew it from the time my recovery stopped short. I would have let you know if I could, and then you would not have been so much shocked."

"So as to cut me off from you entirely?"

"No, indeed. The thought of seeing you again was too--too overwhelming to be indulged in; knowing, as I did, that if you were the same to me, it must be at this sad cost to you," and her eyes filled with tears.

"It is you who make it so, Ermine."