GUESSES.
"Mr. Ingram," cried young Mosenberg, bursting into the room of his
friend, "do you know that I have seen your princess from the island
of the Atlantic? Yes, I met her yesterday, and I went up to the house,
and I dined there and spent all the evening there."
Ingram was not surprised, nor, apparently, much interested. He was
cutting open the leaves of a quarterly review, and a freshly-filled
pipe lay on the table beside him. A fire had been lit, for the
evenings were getting chill occasionally; the shutters were shut;
there was some whisky on the table; so that this small apartment
seemed to have its share of bachelors' comforts.
"Well," said Ingram quietly, "did you play for her?"
"Yes."
"And sing for her too?"
"Yes."
"Did you play and sing your very best for her?"
"Yes, I did. But I have not told you half yet. This afternoon I went
up, and she went out for a walk with me; and we went down through
Kensington Gardens, and all round by the Serpentine--"
"Did she go into that parade of people?" said Ingram, looking up with
some surprise.
"No," said the lad, looking rather crestfallen, for he would have
liked to show off Sheila to some of his friends, "she would not go:
she preferred to watch the small boats on the Serpentine; and she was
very kind, too, in speaking to the children, and helping them with
their boats, although some people stared at her. And what is more than
all these things, to-morrow night she comes with me to a concert in
the St. James's Hall--yes."
"You are very fortunate," said Ingram with a smile, for he was well
pleased to hear that Sheila had taken a fancy to the boy, and was
likely to find his society amusing. "But you have not told me yet what
you think of her."
"What I think of her?" said the lad, pausing in a bewildered way, as
if he could find no words to express his opinion of Sheila. And then
he said, suddenly, "I think she is like the Mother of God."
"You irreverent young rascal!" said Ingram, lighting his pipe, "how
dare you say such a thing?"
"I mean in the pictures--in the tall pictures you see in some
churches abroad, far up in a half-darkness. She has the same sweet,
compassionate look, and her eyes are sometimes a little sad; and when
she speaks to you, you think you have known her for a long time, and
that she wishes to be very kind to you. But she is not a princess
at all, as you told me. I expected to find her grand, haughty,
willful--yes; but she is much too friendly for that; and when she
laughs you see she could not sweep about a room and stare at people.
But if she was angry or proud, perhaps then--"
"See you don't make her angry, then," said Ingram. "Now go and play
over all you were practicing in the morning. No! stop a bit. Sit down
and tell me something more about your experiences of Shei--of Mrs.
Lavender."
Young Mosenberg laughed and sat down: "Do you know, Mr. Ingram, that
the same thing occurred the night before last? I was about to sing
some more, or I was asking Mrs. Lavender to sing some more--I forget
which--but she said to me, 'Not just now. I wish you to sit down and
tell me all you know about Mr. Ingram.'"
"And she no sooner honors you with her confidence than you carry it to
every one?" said Ingram, somewhat fearful of the boy's tongue.
"Oh, as to that," said the lad, delighted to see that his friend was a
little embarrassed--"As to that, I believe she is in love with you."
"Mosenberg," said Ingram with a flash of anger in the dark eyes, "if
you were half a dozen years older I would thrash the life out of you.
Do you think that is a pretty sort of joke to make about a woman?
Don't you know the mischief your gabbling tongue might make? for
how is every one to know that you are talking merely impertinent
nonsense?"
"Oh," said the boy audaciously, "I did not mean anything of the kind
you see in comedies or in operas, breaking up marriages and causing
duels? Oh no. I think she is in love with you as I am in love with
her; and I am, ever since yesterday."
"Well, I will say this for you," remarked Ingram slowly, "that you
are the cheekiest young beggar I have the pleasure to know. You are
in love with her, are you? A lady admits you to her house, is
particularly kind to you, talks to you in confidence, and then you go
and tell people that you are in love with her!"
"I did not tell people," said Mosenberg, flushing under the severity
of the reproof: "I told you only, and I thought you would understand
what I meant. I should have told Lavender himself just as soon--yes;
only he would not care."
"How do you know?"
"Bah!" said the boy impatiently. "Cannot one see it? You have a pretty
wife--much prettier than any one you would see at a ball at Mrs.
Kavanagh's--and you leave her at home, and you go to the ball to amuse
yourself."
This boy, Ingram perceived, was getting to see too clearly how matters
stood. He bade him go and play some music, having first admonished him
gravely about the necessity of keeping some watch and ward over his
tongue. Then the pipe was re-lit, and a fury of sound arose at the
other end of the room.
So Lavender, forgetful of the true-hearted girl who loved him,
forgetful of his own generous instincts, forgetful of the future
that his fine abilities promised, was still dangling after this alien
woman, and Sheila was left at home, with her troubles and piteous
yearnings and fancies as her only companions? Once upon a time Ingram
could have gone straight up to him and admonished him, and driven him
to amend his ways. But now that was impossible.
What was still possible? One wild project occurred to him for a
moment, but he laughed at it and dismissed it. It was that he should
go boldly to Mrs. Lorraine herself, ask her plainly if she knew what
cruel injury she was doing to this young wife, and force her to turn
Lavender adrift. But what enterprise of the days of old romance could
be compared with this mad proposal? To ride up to a castle, blow
a trumpet, and announce that unless a certain lady were released
forthwith death and destruction would begin,--all that was simple
enough, easy and according to rule; but to go into a lady's
drawing-room without an introduction, and request her to stop a
certain flirtation,--that was a much more awful undertaking. But
Ingram could not altogether dismiss this notion from his head.
Mosenberg went on playing--no longer his practicing-pieces, but all
manner of airs which he knew Ingram liked--while the small sallow man
with the brown beard lay in his easy-chair and smoked his pipe, and
gazed attentively at his toes on the fender.
"You know Mrs. Kavanagh and her daughter, don't you, Mosenberg?" he
said during an interval in the music.
"Not much," said the boy. "They were in England only a little while
before I went to Leipsic."
"I should like to know them."
"That is very easy. Mr. Lavender will introduce you to them: Mrs.
Lavender said he went there very much."
"What would they do, do you think, if I went up and asked to see
them?"
"The servant would ask if it was about beer or coals that you called."
A man will do much for a woman who is his friend, but to be suspected
of being a brewer's traveler, to have to push one's way into a strange
drawing-room, to have to confront the awful stare of the inmates, and
then to have to deliver a message which they will probably consider as
the very extreme of audacious and meddling impertinence! The prospect
was not pleasant, and yet Ingram, as he sat and thought over it that
evening, finally resolved to encounter all these dangers and wounds.
He could help Sheila in no other way. He was banished from her house.
Perhaps he might induce this American girl to release her captive and
give Lavender back to his own wife. What were a few twinges of one's
self-respect, or risks of a humiliating failure, compared with the
possibility of befriending Sheila in some small way?
Next morning he went early in to Whitehall, and about one o'clock in
the forenoon started off for Holland Park. He wore a tall hat, a black
frock-coat and yellow kid gloves. He went in a hansom, so that the
person who opened the door should know that he was not a brewer's
traveler. In this wise he reached Mrs. Kavanagh's house, which
Lavender had frequently pointed out to him in passing, about half-past
one, and with some internal tremors, but much outward calmness, went
up the broad stone steps.
A small boy in buttons opened the door.
"Is Mrs. Lorraine at home?"
"Yes, sir," said the boy.
It was the simplest thing in the world. In a couple of seconds he
found himself in a big drawing-room, and the youth had taken his card
up stairs. Ingram was not very sure whether his success, so far, was
due to the hansom, or to his tall hat, or to a silver-headed cane
which his grandfather had brought home from India. However, here he
was in the house, just like the hero of one of those fine old farces
of our youth, who jumps from the street into a strange drawing-room,
flirts with the maid, hides behind a screen, confronts the master, and
marries his daughter, all in half an hour, the most exacting unities
of time and place being faithfully observed.
Presently the door was opened, and a young lady, pale and calm and
sweet of face, approached him, and not only bowed to him, but held out
her hand.
"I have much pleasure in making your acquaintance, Mr. Ingram,"
she said, gently and somewhat slowly. "Mr. Lavender has frequently
promised to bring you to see us, for he has spoken to us so much about
you that we had begun to think we already knew you. Will you come with
me up stairs, that I may introduce you to mamma?"
Ingram had come prepared to state harsh truths bluntly, and was ready
to meet any sort of anger or opposition with a perfect frankness
of intention. But he certainly had not come prepared to find the
smart-tongued and fascinating American widow, of whom he had heard so
much, a quiet, self-possessed and gracious young lady, of singularly
winning manners and clear and resolutely honest eyes. Had Lavender
been quite accurate, or even conscientious, in his garrulous talk
about Mrs. Lorraine?
"If you will excuse me," said Ingram, with a smile that had less of
embarrassment about it than he could have expected, "I would rather
speak to you for a few minutes first. The fact is, I have come on a
self-imposed errand; and that must be my apology for--for thrusting
myself--"
"I am sure no apology is needed," said the girl. "We have always been
expecting to see you. Will you sit down?"
He put his hat and his cane on the table, and as he did so he recorded
a mental resolution not to be led away by the apparent innocence and
sweetness of this woman. What a fool he had been, to expect her to
appear in the guise of some forward and giggling coquette, as if
Frank Lavender, with all his faults, could have suffered anything like
coarseness of manners! But was this woman any the less dangerous that
she was refined and courteous, and had the speech and bearing of a
gentlewoman?
"Mrs. Lorraine," he said, lowering his eyebrows somewhat, "I may as
well be frank with you. I have come upon an unpleasant errand--an
affair, indeed, which ought to be no business of mine; but sometimes,
when you care a little for some one, you don't mind running the
risk of being treated as an intermeddler. You know that I know Mrs.
Lavender. She is an old friend of mine. She was almost a child when I
knew her first, and I still have a sort of notion that she is a child,
and that I should look after her, and so--and so--"
She sat quite still. There was no surprise, no alarm, no anger when
Sheila's name was mentioned. She was merely attentive, but now, seeing
that he hesitated, she said, "I do not know what you have to say, but
if it is serious may not I ask mamma to join us?"
"If you please, no. I would rather speak with you alone, as this
matter concerns yourself only. Well, the fact is, I have seen for some
time back that Mrs. Lavender is very unhappy. She is left alone; she
knows no one in London; perhaps she does not care to join much in
those social amusements that her husband enjoys. I say this poor girl
is an old friend of mine: I cannot help trying to do something to make
her less wretched; and so I have ventured to come to you to see if you
could not assist me. Mr. Lavender comes very much to your house, and
Sheila is left all by herself; and doubtless she begins to fancy that
her husband is neglectful, perhaps indifferent to her, and may get
to imagine things that are quite wrong, you know, and that could be
explained away by a little kindness on your part."
Was this, then, the fashion in which Jonah had gone up to curse the
wickedness of Nineveh? As he had spoken he had been aware that those
sincere, somewhat matter--of-fact and far from unfriendly eyes that
were fixed on him had undergone no change whatever. Here was no vile
creature who would start up with a guilty conscience to repel the
remotest hint of an accusation; and indeed, quite unconsciously to
himself, he had been led on to ask for her help. Not that he feared
her. Not that he could not have said the harshest things to her which
there was any reason for saying. But somehow there seemed to be no
occasion for the utterance of any cruel truths.
The wonder of it was, too, that instead of being wounded, indignant
and angry, as he had expected her to be, she betrayed a very friendly
interest in Sheila, as though she herself had nothing whatever to do
with the matter.
"You have undertaken a very difficult task, Mr. Ingram," she said with
a smile. "I don't think there are many married ladies in London who
have a friend who would do as much for them. And, to tell you the
truth, both my mamma and myself have come to the same conclusion as
yourself about Mr. Lavender. It is really too bad, the way in which
he allows that pretty young thing to remain at home, for I suppose she
would go more into society if he were to coax her and persuade her. We
have done what we could in sending her invitations, in calling on her,
and in begging Mr. Lavender to bring her with him. But he has always
some excuse for her, so that we never see her. And yet I am sure he
does not mean to give her pain; for he is very proud of her, and madly
extravagant wherever she is concerned; and sometimes he takes sudden
fits of trying to please her and be kind to her that are quite odd in
their way. Can you tell me what we should do?"
Ingram looked at her for a moment, and said gravely and slowly,
"Before we talk any more about that I must clear my conscience. I
perceive that I have done you a wrong. I came here prepared to accuse
you of drawing away Mr. Lavender from his wife, of seeking amusement,
and perhaps some social distinction, by keeping him continually
dangling after you; and I meant to reproach you, or even threaten you,
until you promised never to see him again."
A quick flush, partly of shame and partly of annoyance, sprang to Mrs.
Lorraine's fair and pale face; but she answered calmly, "It is perhaps
as well that you did not tell me this a few minutes ago. May I ask
what has led you to change your opinion of me, if it has changed?"
"Of course it has changed," he said, promptly and emphatically. "I
can see that I did you a great injury, and I apologize for it, and
beg your forgiveness. But when you ask me what has led me to change
my opinion, what am I to say? Your manner, perhaps, more than what you
have said has convinced me that I was wrong."
"Perhaps you are again mistaken," she said coldly: "you get rapidly to
conclusions."
"The reproof is just," he said. "You are quite right. I have made a
blunder: there is no mistake about it."
"But do you think it was fair," she said with some spirit--"do you
think it was fair to believe all this harm about a woman you had never
seen? Now, listen. A hundred times I have begged Mr. Lavender to be
more attentive to his wife--not in these words, of course, but as
directly as I could. Mamma has given parties, made arrangements for
visits, drives and all sorts of things, to tempt Mrs. Lavender to come
to us, and all in vain. Of course you can't thrust yourself on any one
like that. Though mamma and myself like Mrs. Lavender very well, it
is asking too much that we should encounter the humiliation of
intermeddling."
Here she stopped suddenly, with the least show of embarrassment. Then
she said frankly, "You are an old friend of hers. It is very good of
you to have risked so much for the sake of that girl. There are very
few gentlemen whom one meets who would do as much."
Ingram could say nothing, and was a little impatient with himself. Was
he to be first reproved, and then treated with an indulgent kindness,
by a mere girl?
"Mamma," said Mrs. Lorraine, as an elderly lady entered the room,
"let me introduce to you Mr. Ingram, whom you must already know. He
proposes we should join in some conspiracy to inveigle Mrs. Lavender
into society, and make the poor little thing amuse herself."
"Little!" said Mrs. Kavanagh with a smile: "she is a good deal
taller than you are, my dear. But I am afraid, Mr. Ingram, you have
undertaken a hopeless task. Will you stay to luncheon and talk it over
with us?"
"I hope you will," said Mrs. Lorraine; and naturally enough he
consented.
Luncheon was just ready. As they were going into the room on the
opposite side of the hall, the younger lady said to Ingram in a quiet
undertone, but with much indifference of manner, "You know, if you
think I ought to give up Mr. Lavender's acquaintance altogether, I
will do so at once. But perhaps that will not be necessary."
So this was the house in which Sheila's husband spent so much of his
time, and these were the two ladies of whom so much had been said and
surmised? There were three of Lavender's pictures on the walls of
the dining-room, and as Ingram inadvertently glanced at them, Mrs.
Lorraine said to him, "Don't you think it is a pity Mr. Lavender
should continue drawing those imaginative sketches of heads? I do not
think, myself, that he does himself justice in that way. Some bits of
landscape, now, that I have seen seemed to me to have quite a definite
character about them, and promised far more than anything else of his
I have seen."
"That is precisely what I think," said Ingram, partly amused and
partly annoyed to find that this girl, with her clear gray eyes, her
soft and musical voice and her singular delicacy of manner, had an
evil trick of saying the very things he would himself have said, and
leaving him with nothing but a helpless "Yes."
"I think he ought to have given up his club when he married. Most
English gentlemen do that when they marry, do they not?" said Mrs.
Kavanagh.
"Some," said Ingram. "But a good deal of nonsense is talked about the
influence of clubs in that way. It is really absurd to suppose
that the size or the shape of a building can alter a man's moral
character."
"It does, though," said Mrs. Lorraine confidently. "I can tell
directly if a gentleman has been accustomed to spend his time in
clubs. When he is surprised or angry or impatient you can perceive
blanks in his conversation which in a club, I suppose, would be filled
up. Don't you know poor old Colonel Hannen's way of talking, mamma?
This old gentleman, Mr. Ingram, is very fond of speaking to you about
political liberty and the rights of conscience; and he generally
becomes so confused that he gets vexed with himself, and makes odd
pauses, as if he were invariably addressing himself in very
rude language indeed. Sometimes you would think he was like a
railway-engine, going blindly and helplessly on through a thick and
choking mist; and you can see that if there were no ladies present he
would let off a few crackers--fog-signals, as it were--just to bring
himself up a bit, and let people know where he was. Then he will go
on again, talking away until you fancy yourself in a tunnel, with a
throbbing noise in your ears and all the daylight shut out, and you
perhaps getting to wish that on the whole you were dead."
"Cecilia!"
"I beg your pardon, mamma," said the younger lady with a quiet smile
"you look so surprised that Mr. Ingram will give me credit for not
often erring in that way. You look as though a hare had turned and
attacked you."
"That would give most people a fright," said Ingram with a laugh. He
was rapidly forgetting the object of his mission. The almost childish
softness of voice of this girl, and the perfect composure with which
she uttered little sayings that showed considerable sharpness of
observation and a keen enjoyment of the grotesque, had an odd sort
of fascination for him. He totally forgot that Lavender had been
fascinated by it too. If he had been reminded of the fact at
this moment he would have said that the _boy_ had, as usual, got
sentimental about a pretty pair of big gray eyes and a fine profile,
while he, Ingram, was possessed by nothing but a purely intellectual
admiration of certain fine qualities of wit, sincerity of speech and
womanly shrewdness.
Luncheon, indeed, was over before any mention was made of the
Lavenders; and when they returned to that subject it appeared to
Ingram that their relations had in the mean time got to be very
friendly, and that they were really discussing this matter as if they
formed a little family conclave.
"I have told Mr. Ingram, mamma," Mrs. Lorraine said, "that so far as I
am concerned I will do whatever he thinks I ought to do. Mr. Lavender
has been a friend of ours for some time, and of course he cannot
be treated with rudeness or incivility; but if we are wounding the
feelings of any one by asking him to come here--and he certainly
visited us pretty often--why, it would be easy to lessen the number of
his calls. Is that what we should do, Mr. Ingram? You would not have
us quarrel with him?"
"Especially," said Mrs. Kavanagh with a smile, "that there is no
certainty he will spend more of his time with his wife merely because
he spends less of it here. And yet I fancy he is a very good-natured
man."
"He _is_ very good-natured," said Ingram with decision. "I have known
him for years, and I know that he is exceedingly unselfish, and that
he would do a ridiculously generous thing to serve a friend, and that
a better-intentioned fellow does not breathe in the world. But he is
at times, I admit, very thoughtless and inconsiderate."
"That sort of good-nature," said Mrs. Lorraine in her gentlest voice,
"is very good in its way, but rather uncertain. So long as it shines
in one direction, it is all right and quite trustworthy, for you
want a hard brush to brush sunlight off a wall. But when the sunlight
shifts, you know--"
"The wall is left in the cold. Well," said Ingram, "I am afraid it
is impossible for me to dictate to you what you ought to do. I do not
wish to draw you into any interference between husband and wife,
or even to let Mr. Lavender know that you think he is not treating
Shei--Mrs. Lavender--properly. But if you were to hint to him that
he ought to pay some attention to her--that he should not be going
everywhere as if he were a young bachelor in chambers; if you would
discourage his coming to see you without bringing her also, and so
forth--surely he would see what you mean. Perhaps I ask too much of
you, but I had intended to ask more. The fact is, Mrs. Kavanagh, I had
done your daughter the injustice of supposing--"
"I thought we had agreed to say no more about that," said Mrs.
Lorraine quickly, and Ingram was silent.
Half an hour thereafter he was walking back through Holland Park,
through the warm light of an autumn afternoon. The place seemed much
changed since he had seen it a couple of hours before. The double
curve of big houses had a more friendly and hospitable look: the very
air seemed to be more genial and comfortable since he had driven up
here in the hansom.
Perhaps Mr. Ingram was at this moment a little more perturbed, pleased
and bewildered than he would have liked to confess. He had discovered
a great deal in these two hours, been much surprised and fascinated,
and had come away fairly stupefied with the result of his mission.
He had indeed been successful: Lavender would now find a different
welcome awaiting him in the house in which he had been spending nearly
all his time, to the neglect of his wife. But the fact is, that as
Edward Ingram went rapidly over in his own mind everything that had
occurred since his entrance into that house, as he anxiously recalled
the remarks made to him, the tone and looks accompanying them, and his
own replies, it was not of Lavender's affairs alone that he thought.
He confessed to himself frankly that he had never yet met any woman
who had so surprised him into admiration on their first meeting.
Yet what had she said? Nothing very particular. Was it the bright
intelligence of the gray eyes, that seemed to see everything he meant
with an instant quickness, and that seemed to agree with him even
before he spoke? He reflected, now that he was in the open air, that
he must have persecuted these two women dreadfully. In getting away
from Lavender's affairs they had touched on pictures, books and what
not--on the young poet who was playing Alfred de Musset in England;
on the great philosopher who had gone into the House to confuse and
bewilder the country gentlemen there; on all sorts of topics, indeed,
except those which, as Ingram had anticipated, such a creature as Mrs.
Lorraine would naturally have found interesting. And he had to
confess to himself that he had lectured his two helpless victims most
unmercifully. He was quite conscious that he sometimes laid down the
law in an authoritative and even sententious manner. On first going
into the house certain things said by Mrs. Lorraine had almost
surprised him into a mood of mere acquiescence; but after luncheon he
had assumed his ordinary manner of tutor in general to the universe,
and had informed those two women, in a distinct fashion, what their
opinions ought to be on half the social conundrums of the day.
He now reflected, with much compunction, that this was highly
improper. He ought to have asked about flower-shows, and inquired
whether the princess of Wales was looking well of late. Some reference
to the last Parisian comedy might have introduced a disquisition
on the new grays and greens of the French milliners, with a passing
mention made of the price paid for a pair of ponies by a certain
marquise unattached. He had not spoken of one of these things:
perhaps he could not if he had tried. He remembered, with an awful
consciousness of guilt, that he had actually discoursed of woman
suffrage, of the public conscience of New York, of the extirpation of
the Indians, and a dozen different things, not only taking no heed
of any opinions that his audience of two might hold, but insisting
on their accepting his opinions as the expression of absolute and
incontrovertible truth.
He became more and more dissatisfied with himself. If he could only go
back now, he would be much more wary, more submissive and complaisant,
more anxious to please. What right had he to abuse the courtesy
and hospitality of these two strangers, and lecture them on the
Constitution of their own country? He was annoyed beyond expression
that they had listened to him with so much patience.
And yet he could not have seriously offended them, for they had
earnestly besought him to dine with them on the following Tuesday
evening, to meet an American judge; and when he had consented Mrs.
Lorraine had written down on a card the date and hour, lest he should
forget. He had that card in his pocket: surely he could not have
offended them? If he had pursued this series of questions, he might
have gone on to ask himself why he should be so anxious not to have
offended these two new friends. He was not ordinarily very sensitive
to the opinions that might be formed of him--more especially by
persons living out of his own sphere, with whom he was not likely to
associate. He did not, indeed, as a general rule, suffer himself to
be perturbed about anything; and yet, as he went along the busy
thoroughfare at this moment, he was conscious that rarely in his life
had he been so ill at ease.
Something now occurred that startled him out of his reverie. Communing
with himself, he was staring blankly ahead, taking little note of
the people whom he saw. But somehow, in a vague and dreamlike way, he
seemed to become aware that there was some one in front of him--a
long way ahead as yet--whom he knew. He was still thinking of Mrs.
Lorraine, and unconsciously postponing the examination of this
approaching figure, or rather pair of figures, when, with a sudden
start, he found Sheila's sad and earnest eyes fixed upon him. He woke
up as from a dream. He saw that young Mosenberg was with her, and
naturally the boy would have approached Ingram, and stopped and
spoken. But Ingram paid no attention to him. He was, with a quick pang
at his heart, regarding Sheila, with the knowledge that on her rested
the cruel decision as to whether she should come forward to him or
not. He was not aware that her husband had forbidden her to have any
communication with him; yet he had guessed as much, partly from his
knowledge of Lavender's impatient disposition, and partly from the
glance he caught of her eyes when he woke up from his trance.
Young Mosenberg turned with surprise to his companion. She was passing
on: he did not even see that she had bowed to Ingram, with a face
flushed with shame and pain and with eyes cast down. Ingram, too, was
passing on, without even shaking hands with her or uttering a word.
Mosenberg was too bewildered to attempt any protest: he merely
followed Sheila, with a conviction that something desperate had
occurred, and that he would best consult her feelings by making no
reference to it.
But that one look that the girl had directed to her old friend before
she bowed and passed on had filled him with dismay and despair. It
was somehow like the piteous look of a wounded animal, incapable
of expressing its pain. All thoughts and fancies of his own little
vexations or embarrassments were instantly banished from him: he could
only see before him those sad and piteous eyes, full of kindness
to him, he thought, and of grief that she should be debarred from
speaking to him, and of resignation to her own lot.
Gwdyr House did not get much work out of him that day. He sat in a
small room in a back part of the building, looking out on a lonely
little square, silent and ruddy with the reflected light of the
sunset.
"A hundred Mrs. Kavanaghs," he was thinking to himself bitterly
enough, "will not save my poor Sheila. She will die of a broken heart.
I can see it in her face. And it is I who have done it--from first to
last it is I who have done it; and now I can do nothing to help her."
That became the burden and refrain of all his reflections. It was he
who had done this frightful thing. It was he who had taken away the
young Highland girl, his good Sheila, from her home, and ruined her
life and broken her heart. And he could do nothing to help her!