"I think it's better for both of us, for me to go away now. We may say things difficult to forget. We are both much agitated. By to-morrow we shall be more composed; you will have thought it over, and have seen that the princ.i.p.al--one great motive, I mean--was your good. You may tell Mrs. Hamley--I meant to have told her myself. I will come again to-morrow. Good-by, Molly."

For many minutes after he had ridden away--long after the sound of his horse's hoofs on the round stones of the paved lane, beyond the home-meadows, had died away--Molly stood there, shading her eyes, and looking at the empty s.p.a.ce of air in which his form had last appeared. Her very breath seemed suspended; only, two or three times, after long intervals, she drew a miserable sigh, which was caught up into a sob. She turned away at last, but could not go into the house, could not tell Mrs. Hamley, could not forget how her father had looked and spoken--and left her.

She went out through a side-door--it was the way by which the gardeners pa.s.sed when they took the manure into the garden--and the walk to which it led was concealed from sight as much as possible by shrubs and evergreens and over-arching trees. No one would know what became of her--and, with the ingrat.i.tude of misery, she added to herself, no one would care. Mrs. Hamley had her own husband, her own children, her close home interests--she was very good and kind, but there was a bitter grief in Molly's heart, with which the stranger could not intermeddle. She went quickly on to the bourne which she had fixed for herself--a seat almost surrounded by the drooping leaves of a weeping-ash--a seat on the long broad terrace walk on the other side of the wood, that overlooked the pleasant slope of the meadows beyond. The walk had probably been made to command this sunny, peaceful landscape, with trees, and a church spire, two or three red-tiled roofs of old cottages, and a purple bit of rising ground in the distance; and at some previous date, when there might have been a large family of Hamleys residing at the Hall, ladies in hoops, and gentlemen in bag-wigs with swords by their sides, might have filled up the breadth of the terrace, as they sauntered, smiling, along. But no one ever cared to saunter there now. It was a deserted walk. The squire or his sons might cross it in pa.s.sing to a little gate that led to the meadow beyond; but no one loitered there.

Molly almost thought that no one knew of the hidden seat under the ash-tree but herself; for there were not more gardeners employed upon the grounds than were necessary to keep the kitchen-gardens and such of the ornamental part as was frequented by the family, or in sight of the house, in good order.

When she had once got to the seat she broke out with suppressed pa.s.sion of grief. She did not care to a.n.a.lyze the sources of her tears and sobs--her father was going to be married again--her father was angry with her; she had done very wrong--he had gone away displeased; she had lost his love; he was going to be married--away from her--away from his child--his little daughter--forgetting her own dear, dear mother. So she thought in a tumultuous kind of way, sobbing till she was wearied out, and had to gain strength by being quiet for a time, to break forth into her pa.s.sion of tears afresh.

She had cast herself on the ground--that natural throne for violent sorrow--and leant up against the old moss-grown seat; sometimes burying her face in her hands; sometimes clasping them together, as if by the tight painful grasp of her fingers she could deaden mental suffering.

She did not see Roger Hamley returning from the meadows, nor hear the click of the little white gate. He had been out dredging in ponds and ditches, and had his wet sling-net, with its imprisoned treasures of nastiness, over his shoulder. He was coming home to lunch, having always a fine midday appet.i.te, though he pretended to despise the meal in theory. But he knew that his mother liked his companionship then; she depended much upon her luncheon, and was seldom downstairs and visible to her family much before the time. So he overcame his theory, for the sake of his mother, and had his reward in the hearty relish with which he kept her company in eating.

He did not see Molly as he crossed the terrace-walk on his way homewards. He had gone about twenty yards along the small wood-path at right angles to the terrace, when, looking among the gra.s.s and wild plants under the trees, he spied out one which was rare, one which he had been long wishing to find in flower, and saw it at last, with those bright keen eyes of his. Down went his net, skilfully twisted so as to retain its contents, while it lay amid the herbage, and he himself went with light and well-planted footsteps in search of the treasure. He was so great a lover of nature that, without any thought, but habitually, he always avoided treading unnecessarily on any plant; who knew what long-sought growth or insect might develop itself in that which now appeared but insignificant?

His steps led him in the direction of the ash-tree seat, much less screened from observation on this side than on the terrace. He stopped; he saw a light-coloured dress on the ground--somebody half-lying on the seat, so still just then, he wondered if the person, whoever it was, had fallen ill or fainted. He paused to watch. In a minute or two the sobs broke out again--the words. It was Miss Gibson crying out in a broken voice,--

"Oh, papa, papa! if you would but come back!"

For a minute or two he thought it would be kinder to leave her fancying herself un.o.bserved; he had even made a retrograde step or two, on tip-toe; but then he heard the miserable sobbing again. It was farther than his mother could walk, or else, be the sorrow what it would, she was the natural comforter of this girl, her visitor.

However, whether it was right or wrong, delicate or obtrusive, when he heard the sad voice talking again, in such tones of uncomforted, lonely misery, he turned back, and went to the green tent under the ash-tree. She started up when he came thus close to her; she tried to check her sobs, and instinctively smoothed her wet tangled hair back with her hands.

He looked down upon her with grave, kind sympathy, but he did not know exactly what to say.

"Is it lunch-time?" said she, trying to believe that he did not see the traces of her tears and the disturbance of her features--that he had not seen her lying, sobbing her heart out there.

"I don't know. I was going home to lunch. But--you must let me say it--I couldn't go on when I saw your distress. Has anything happened?--anything in which I can help you, I mean; for, of course, I've no right to make the inquiry, if it is any private sorrow, in which I can be of no use."

She had exhausted herself so much with crying, that she felt as if she could neither stand nor walk just yet. She sate down on the seat, and sighed, and turned so pale, he thought she was going to faint.

"Wait a moment," said he,--quite unnecessarily, for she could not have stirred,--and he was off like a shot to some spring of water that he knew of in the wood, and in a minute or two he returned with careful steps, bringing a little in a broad green leaf, turned into an impromptu cup. Little as it was, it did her good.

"Thank you!" she said: "I can walk back now, in a short time. Don't stop."

"You must let me," said he: "my mother wouldn't like me to leave you to come home alone, while you are so faint."

So they remained in silence for a little while; he, breaking off and examining one or two abnormal leaves of the ash-tree, partly from the custom of his nature, partly to give her time to recover.

"Papa is going to be married again," said she, at length.

She could not have said why she told him this; an instant before she spoke, she had no intention of doing so. He dropped the leaf he held in his hand, turned round, and looked at her. Her poor wistful eyes were filling with tears as they met his, with a dumb appeal for sympathy. Her look was much more eloquent than her words. There was a momentary pause before he replied, and then it was more because he felt that he must say something than that he was in any doubt as to the answer to the question he asked.

"You are sorry for it?"

She did not take her eyes away from his, as her quivering lips formed the word "Yes," though her voice made no sound. He was silent again now; looking on the ground, kicking softly at a loose pebble with his foot. His thoughts did not come readily to the surface in the shape of words; nor was he apt at giving comfort till he saw his way clear to the real source from which consolation must come. At last he spoke,--almost as if he was reasoning out the matter with himself.

"It seems as if there might be cases where--setting the question of love entirely on one side--it must be almost a duty to find some one to be a subst.i.tute for the mother. . . I can believe," said he, in a different tone of voice, and looking at Molly afresh, "that this step may be greatly for your father's happiness--it may relieve him from many cares, and may give him a pleasant companion."

"He had me. You don't know what we were to each other--at least, what he was to me," she added, humbly.

"Still he must have thought it for the best, or he wouldn't have done it. He may have thought it the best for your sake even more than for his own."

"That is what he tried to convince me of."

Roger began kicking the pebble again. He had not got hold of the right end of the clue. Suddenly he looked up.

"I want to tell you of a girl I know. Her mother died when she was about sixteen--the eldest of a large family. From that time--all through the bloom of her youth--she gave herself up to her father, first as his comforter, afterwards as his companion, friend, secretary--anything you like. He was a man with a great deal of business on hand, and often came home only to set to afresh to preparations for the next day's work. Harriet was always there, ready to help, to talk, or to be silent. It went on for eight or ten years in this way; and then her father married again,--a woman not many years older than Harriet herself. Well--they are just the happiest set of people I know--you wouldn't have thought it likely, would you?"

She was listening, but she had no heart to say anything. Yet she was interested in this little story of Harriet--a girl who had been so much to her father, more than Molly in this early youth of hers could have been to Mr. Gibson. "How was it?" she sighed out at last.

"Harriet thought of her father's happiness before she thought of her own," Roger answered, with something of severe brevity. Molly needed the bracing. She began to cry again a little.

"If it were for papa's happiness--"

"He must believe that it is. Whatever you fancy, give him a chance.

He cannot have much comfort, I should think, if he sees you fretting or pining,--you who have been so much to him, as you say. The lady herself, too--if Harriet's stepmother had been a selfish woman, and been always clutching after the gratification of her own wishes; but she was not: she was as anxious for Harriet to be happy as Harriet was for her father--and your father's future wife may be another of the same kind, though such people are rare."

"I don't think she is, though," murmured Molly, a waft of recollection bringing to her mind the details of her day at the Towers long ago.

Roger did not want to hear Molly's reasons for this doubting speech.

He felt as if he had no right to hear more of Mr. Gibson's family life, past, present, or to come, than was absolutely necessary for him, in order that he might comfort and help the crying girl, whom he had come upon so unexpectedly. And besides, he wanted to go home, and be with his mother at lunch-time. Yet he could not leave her alone.

"It is right to hope for the best about everybody, and not to expect the worst. This sounds like a truism, but it has comforted me before now, and some day you'll find it useful. One has always to try to think more of others than of oneself, and it is best not to prejudge people on the bad side. My sermons aren't long, are they? Have they given you an appet.i.te for lunch? Sermons always make me hungry, I know."

He appeared to be waiting for her to get up and come along with him, as indeed he was. But he meant her to perceive that he should not leave her; so she rose up languidly, too languid to say how much she should prefer being left alone, if he would only go away without her.

She was very weak, and stumbled over the straggling root of a tree that projected across the path. He, watchful though silent, saw this stumble, and putting out his hand held her up from falling. He still held her hand when the occasion was past; this little physical failure impressed on his heart how young and helpless she was, and he yearned to her, remembering the pa.s.sion of sorrow in which he had found her, and longing to be of some little tender bit of comfort to her, before they parted--before their tete-a-tete walk was merged in the general familiarity of the household life. Yet he did not know what to say.

"You will have thought me hard," he burst out at length, as they were nearing the drawing-room windows and the garden-door. "I never can manage to express what I feel--somehow I always fall to philosophizing--but I am sorry for you. Yes, I am; it's beyond my power to help you, as far as altering facts goes, but I can feel for you, in a way which it's best not to talk about, for it can do no good. Remember how sorry I am for you! I shall often be thinking of you, though I daresay it's best not to talk about it again."

She said, "I know you are sorry," under her breath, and then she broke away, and ran indoors, and upstairs to the solitude of her own room. He went straight to his mother, who was sitting before the untasted luncheon, as much annoyed by the mysterious unpunctuality of her visitor as she was capable of being with anything; for she had heard that Mr. Gibson had been, and was gone, and she could not discover if he had left any message for her; and her anxiety about her own health, which some people esteemed hypochondriacal, always made her particularly craving for the wisdom which might fall from her doctor's lips.

"Where have you been, Roger? Where is Molly?--Miss Gibson, I mean,"

for she was careful to keep up a barrier of forms between the young man and young woman who were thrown together in the same household.

"I've been out dredging. (By the way, I left my net on the terrace walk.) I found Miss Gibson sitting there, crying as if her heart would break. Her father is going to be married again."

"Married again! You don't say so."

"Yes, he is; and she takes it very hardly, poor girl. Mother, I think if you could send some one to her with a gla.s.s of wine, a cup of tea, or something of that sort--she was very nearly fainting--"

"I'll go to her myself, poor child," said Mrs. Hamley, rising.

"Indeed you must not," said he, laying his hand upon her arm. "We have kept you waiting already too long; you are looking quite pale.

Hammond can take it," he continued, ringing the bell. She sate down again, almost stunned with surprise.

"Whom is he going to marry?"

"I don't know. I didn't ask, and she didn't tell me."

"That's so like a man. Why, half the character of the affair lies in the question of who it is that he is going to marry."