"That's right. That's my own boy," said the Squire turning round and shaking hands with his son with vehemence. "And now I'll tell you what I heard the other day, when I was at the magistrates' meeting.

They were all saying she had jilted Preston."

"I don't want to hear anything against her; she may have her faults, but I can never forget how I once loved her."

"Well, well! Perhaps it's right. I was not so bad about it, was I, Roger? Poor Osborne need not ha' been so secret with me. I asked your Miss Cynthia out here--and her mother and all--my bark is worse than my bite. For, if I had a wish on earth, it was to see Osborne married as befitted one of an old stock, and he went and chose out this French girl, of no family at all, only a--"

"Never mind what she was; look at what she is! I wonder you are not more taken with her humility and sweetness, father!"

"I don't even call her pretty," said the Squire uneasily, for he dreaded a repet.i.tion of the arguments which Roger had often used to make him give Aimee her proper due of affection and position. "Now your Miss Cynthia was pretty, I will say that for her, the baggage!

And to think that when you two lads flew right in your father's face, and picked out girls below you in rank and family, you should neither of you have set your fancies on my little Molly there. I daresay I should ha' been angry enough at the time, but the la.s.sie would ha'

found her way to my heart, as never this French lady, nor t' other one, could ha' done."

Roger did not answer.

"I don't see why you mightn't put up for her still. I'm humble enough now, and you're not heir as...o...b..rne was who married a servant-maid.

Don't you think you could turn your thoughts upon Molly Gibson, Roger?"

"No!" said Roger, shortly. "It's too late--too late. Don't let us talk any more of my marrying. Isn't this the five-acre field?" And soon he was discussing the relative values of meadow, arable and pasture land with his father, as heartily as if he had never known Molly, or loved Cynthia. But the squire was not in such good spirits, and went but heavily into the discussion. At the end of it he said apropos de bottes,--

"But don't you think you could like her if you tried, Roger?"

Roger knew perfectly well to what his father was alluding, but for an instant he was on the point of pretending to misunderstand. At length, however, he said, in a low voice,--

"I shall never try, father. Don't let us talk any more about it. As I said before, it's too late."

The Squire was like a child to whom some toy has been refused; from time to time the thought of his disappointment in this matter recurred to his mind; and then he took to blaming Cynthia as the primary cause of Roger's present indifference to womankind.

It so happened that on Molly's last morning at the Hall, she received her first letter from Cynthia--Mrs. Henderson. It was just before breakfast-time; Roger was out of doors, Aimee had not as yet come down; Molly was alone in the dining-room, where the table was already laid. She had just finished reading her letter when the Squire came in, and she immediately and joyfully told him what the morning had brought to her. But when she saw the Squire's face, she could have bitten her tongue out for having named Cynthia's name to him. He looked vexed and depressed.

"I wish I might never hear of her again--I do. She's been the bane of my Roger, that's what she has. I haven't slept half the night, and it's all her fault. Why, there's my boy saying now that he has no heart for ever marrying, poor lad! I wish it had been you, Molly, my lads had taken a fancy for. I told Roger so t'other day, and I said that for all you were beneath what I ever thought to see them marry,--well--it's of no use--it's too late, now, as he said.

Only never let me hear that baggage's name again, that's all, and no offence to you either, la.s.sie. I know you love the wench; but if you'll take an old man's word, you're worth a score of her. I wish young men would think so too," he muttered as he went to the side-table to carve the ham, while Molly poured out the tea--her heart very hot all the time, and effectually silenced for a s.p.a.ce.

It was with the greatest difficulty that she could keep tears of mortification from falling. She felt altogether in a wrong position in that house, which had been like a home to her until this last visit. What with Mrs. Goodenough's remarks, and now this speech of the Squire's, implying--at least to her susceptible imagination--that his father had proposed her as a wife to Roger, and that she had been rejected--she was more glad than she could express, or even think, that she was going home this very morning. Roger came in from his walk while she was in this state of feeling. He saw in an instant that something had distressed Molly; and he longed to have the old friendly right of asking her what it was. But she had effectually kept him at too great a distance during the last few days for him to feel at liberty to speak to her in the old straightforward brotherly way; especially now, when he perceived her efforts to conceal her feelings, and the way in which she drank her tea in feverish haste, and accepted bread only to crumble it about her plate, untouched. It was all that he could do to make talk under these circ.u.mstances; but he backed up her efforts as well as he could until Aimee came down, grave and anxious: her boy had not had a good night, and did not seem well; he had fallen into a feverish sleep now, or she could not have left him. Immediately the whole table was in a ferment. The Squire pushed away his plate, and could eat no more; Roger was trying to extract a detail or a fact out of Aimee, who began to give way to tears. Molly quickly proposed that the carriage, which had been ordered to take her home at eleven, should come round immediately--she had everything ready packed up, she said,--and bring back her father at once. By leaving directly, she said, it was probable they might catch him after he had returned from his morning visits in the town, and before he had set off on his more distant round. Her proposal was agreed to, and she went upstairs to put on her things. She came down all ready into the drawing-room, expecting to find Aimee and the Squire there; but during her absence word had been brought to the anxious mother and grandfather that the child had wakened up in a panic, and both had rushed up to their darling. But Roger was in the drawing-room awaiting Molly, with a large bunch of the choicest flowers.

"Look, Molly!" said he, as she was on the point of leaving the room again, on finding him there alone. "I gathered these flowers for you before breakfast." He came to meet her reluctant advance.

"Thank you!" said she. "You are very kind. I am very much obliged to you."

"Then you must do something for me," said he, determined not to notice the restraint of her manner, and making the re-arrangement of the flowers which she held a sort of link between them, so that she could not follow her impulse, and leave the room.

"Tell me,--honestly as I know you will if you speak at all,--haven't I done something to vex you since we were so happy at the Towers together?"

His voice was so kind and true,--his manner so winning yet wistful, that Molly would have been thankful to tell him all. She believed that he could have helped her more than any one to understand how she ought to behave rightly; he would have disentangled her fancies,--if only he himself had not lain at the very core and centre of all her perplexity and dismay. How could she tell him of Mrs. Goodenough's words troubling her maiden modesty? How could she ever repeat what his father had said that morning, and a.s.sure him that she, no more than he, wished that their old friendliness should be troubled by the thought of a nearer relationship?

"No, you never vexed me in my whole life, Roger," said she, looking straight at him for the first time for many days.

"I believe you, because you say so. I have no right to ask further.

Molly, will you give me back one of those flowers, as a pledge of what you have said?"

"Take whichever you like," said she, eagerly offering him the whole nosegay to choose from.

"No; you must choose, and you must give it me."

Just then the Squire came in. Roger would have been glad if Molly had not gone on so eagerly to ransack the bunch for the choicest flower in his father's presence; but she exclaimed:

"Oh, please, Mr. Hamley, do you know which is Roger's favourite flower?"

"No. A rose, I daresay. The carriage is at the door, and, Molly my dear, I don't want to hurry you, but--"

"I know. Here, Roger,--here is a rose!

("And red as a rose was she.")

I will find papa as soon as ever I get home. How is the little boy?"

"I'm afraid he's beginning of some kind of a fever."

And the Squire took her to the carriage, talking all the way of the little boy; Roger following, and hardly heeding what he was doing in the answer to the question he kept asking himself: "Too late--or not?

Can she ever forget that my first foolish love was given to one so different?"

While she, as the carriage rolled away, kept saying to herself,--"We are friends again. I don't believe he will remember what the dear Squire took it into his head to suggest for many days. It is so pleasant to be on the old terms again! and what lovely flowers!"

CHAPTER LX.

ROGER HAMLEY'S CONFESSION.

Roger had a great deal to think of as he turned away from looking after the carriage as long as it could be seen. The day before, he had believed that Molly had come to view all the symptoms of his growing love for her,--symptoms which he thought had been so patent,--as disgusting inconstancy to the inconstant Cynthia; that she had felt that an attachment which could be so soon transferred to another was not worth having; and that she had desired to mark all this by her changed treatment of him, and so to nip it in the bud.

But this morning her old sweet, frank manner had returned--in their last interview, at any rate. He puzzled himself hard to find out what could have distressed her at breakfast-time. He even went so far as to ask Robinson whether Miss Gibson had received any letters that morning; and when he heard that she had had one, he tried to believe that the letter was in some way the cause of her sorrow. So far so good. They were friends again after their unspoken difference; but that was not enough for Roger. He felt every day more and more certain that she, and she alone, could make him happy. He had felt this, and had partly given up all hope, while his father had been urging upon him the very course he most desired to take. No need for "trying" to love her, he said to himself,--that was already done. And yet he was very jealous on her behalf. Was that love worthy of her which had once been given to Cynthia? Was not this affair too much a mocking mimicry of the last--again just on the point of leaving England for a considerable time--if he followed her now to her own home,--in the very drawing-room where he had once offered to Cynthia?

And then by a strong resolve he determined on this course. They were friends now, and he kissed the rose that was her pledge of friendship. If he went to Africa, he ran some deadly chances; he knew better what they were now than he had done when he went before. Until his return he would not even attempt to win more of her love than he already had. But once safe home again, no weak fancies as to what might or might not be her answer should prevent his running all chances to gain the woman who was to him the one who excelled all. His was not the poor vanity that thinks more of the possible mortification of a refusal than of the precious jewel of a bride that may be won. Somehow or another, please G.o.d to send him back safe, he would put his fate to the touch. And till then he would be patient.

He was no longer a boy to rush at the coveted object; he was a man capable of judging and abiding.

Molly sent her father, as soon as she could find him, to the Hall; and then sate down to the old life in the home drawing-room, where she missed Cynthia's bright presence at every turn. Mrs. Gibson was in rather a querulous mood, which fastened itself upon the injury of Cynthia's letter being addressed to Molly, and not to herself.

"Considering all the trouble I had with her trousseau, I think she might have written to me."

"But she did--her first letter was to you, mamma," said Molly, her real thoughts still intent upon the Hall--upon the sick child--upon Roger, and his begging for the flower.

"Yes, just a first letter, three pages long, with an account of her crossing; while to you she can write about fashions, and how the bonnets are worn in Paris, and all sorts of interesting things. But poor mothers must never expect confidential letters, I have found that out."

"You may see my letter, mamma," said Molly, "there is really nothing in it."

"And to think of her writing, and crossing to you who don't value it, while my poor heart is yearning after my lost child! Really, life is somewhat hard to bear at times."

Then there was silence--for a while.