Matters did not end at once. Interview after interview filled up the
rest of that miserable day. Lord Haredale came down from London,
apparently already determined to break off the engagement. Mrs Leigh's
determination went steadily in the same direction. She scouted Una's
letter as a manifest falsehood, of a piece with the story of the purse,
and declared that nothing would induce her to accept Lady Haredale's
daughter as her son's wife. As Lucian would not own himself convinced,
she proposed a private appeal to Major Fowler, but this he fiercely
negatived, saying that the facts were valueless, except as coming from
Amethyst herself, and also that Major Fowler could do nothing but echo
the denial.
Lord and Lady Haredale declared that unless Lucian, and Mrs Leigh also,
withdrew their suspicions at once and wholly, and apologised for having
entertained them, they would not allow their daughter to continue her
engagement. Amethyst herself, angered and hurt, ashamed and confounded,
too inexperienced to follow the dictates of the love that ought to have
been stronger than all else, wounded at Lucian's doubts, and believing
that the duty of hiding her mother's disgrace came before the duty of
being open with her lover, was passive and silent. Lucian, with
intervals of passionate desire to give up everything rather than lose
her, recurred again and again to his instinctive utterance, "She ought
to tell _me_" well knowing that it was out of his power to endure the
doubt that had fallen on her. So he fought back the impulse to trust
her, as a temptation, and she fought back the longing to tell him, as a
sin; and so, forced on by the determination of their elders, the fatal
deed was completed. The packets of letters and presents were exchanged,
the notes and telegrams to stop the wedding preparations were already
being despatched, Amethyst had locked herself into her own room, feeling
as if she could never show her face again, and Lucian, in his, was
roughly throwing his things into a portmanteau, determining that months
should elapse before he again saw Ashfield, if indeed he ever returned
there at all, when Mr Riddell, unluckily absent from home all day on
clerical business, drove himself back in the cool of the evening in his
little pony-trap, his mind recurring to his son's distress of mind on
the night before. Presently he saw Sylvester coming along the road to
meet him.
"Oh, father," said the young man, as the pony pulled up, "this has been
a miserable day."
"What is it? Get in, and tell me about it," said the Rector.
Sylvester nerved himself to tell the story clearly.
"We did see her. I cannot think otherwise," he concluded. "But I would
stake my soul on it, that there is some way out of the mystery."
"My dear boy, it doesn't do to begin married life with a mystery. Wait,
and it may be solved yet."
"Her life will be ruined!"
"No, I hope not; we must try to show her kindness, to help her. But, if
all had gone smooth, and she had married Lucian, who can tell how it
would have been? He is a good fellow; but she--"
"She is more than good," said Sylvester, under his breath, "but--" then
suddenly he flung up his head, and said passionately, "_I_ would have
run the risk."
"I think," said Mr Riddell, after a moment's pause, "that I should try
to look on this engagement as only delayed. If the attachment between
them is of a sterling kind, it will survive much."
"I expect Lucian will set himself to get over it," said Sylvester.
"He'll think it a duty."
He was pale, and had an agitated look, and his father glanced round at
him for a moment.
"I _think_ I should regard its renewal as still a possibility," he said.
"Here is the turn to the Mount, perhaps I had better go at once to Mrs
Leigh."
"And I to look after poor Lucy," said Sylvester with some compunction.
But all the time he was wondering who would comfort Amethyst, and
thinking that the woe that her beautiful eyes could express, would be
deeper than Lucian's nature was capable of feeling.
Perhaps he was wrong. Lucian was incapable of speech, indifferent to
sympathy. He did not care just then whether Sylvester came to him or
not. He would not let his mother say a word to him, except on the
business necessary to be gone through; no friendship and no family
affection could help him then. Like many happy, unemotional young
people, he had taken all these sentiments for granted; the first
conscious emotion he had known had been his ill-starred love, and now
this love was changed into stinging, burning pain. He had once been for
some shooting up to the West of Scotland, he would go there now and walk
over the moors, and face it out by himself. It was impossible to oppose
him, and Mrs Leigh spared him, as much as possible, the anxious
cautions which she longed to give.