SUSPENSE.
For two or three days Florence could not resist secretly watching
Mr. Aylwinne. He did not go to town, as she had expected he would,
but he wrote several letters, and seemed unusually impatient for the
arrival of the post. There was an inexplicable change, too, in his
manner toward herself. Without actually avoiding her, he seemed to hold
himself aloof, to address her with increased respect and consideration,
and to lower his tones as if some great sympathy for her were striving
within him.
Florence flushed to the temples as she imagined a reason for this. He
had missed the newspaper, had guessed whose hand had abstracted it, and
divined the feelings with which she had discovered his interest in its
contents.
Ashamed to have so betrayed herself, she tried to appear careless and
light-hearted, but succeeded so ill that even Aunt Margaret detected
something amiss, and openly wondered what ailed her.
“I cannot understand that girl,” she said to Mr. Aylwinne
confidentially. “I’m sure she has some secret she keeps from me, which
is most ungenerous of her, for she knows how much I abhor mysteries and
deceit.”
“Miss Heriton wants a change,” he answered abruptly. “She must go away
from here, or she will have an illness. Take her to the seaside, Mrs.
Blunden, and let my wards go with you. She will then have less time to
be lonely and brood over her sorrows.”
“Sorrows!” Mrs. Blunden ejaculated, almost angrily. “Good gracious!
Why, she has none; or, if she has, it’s very unthankful of her! She
knows I shall make a provision for her future, whether she marries
or remains single, and I’m neither exacting nor ill-natured. Sorrows
indeed!”
“The young have many thoughts they do not always care to publish,”
he replied evasively, “and Miss Heriton may have had troubles in her
father’s lifetime which have robbed her of her natural cheerfulness.”
“It’s more likely that the heat of the weather has affected her,” said
Aunt Margaret, unable to enter into his ideas. “I’m afraid she has
her mother’s delicate constitution. I was very inconsiderate not to
think of that before. Poor child!” she added, all her better feelings
awakening. “I’ve no doubt she has felt languid and poorly for some
time, and would not confess it for fear of alarming me. I’ll have a
physician from London directly, and he shall counsel me where to take
her.”
Accordingly Mrs. Blunden dispatched a telegram for one of the highest
medical authorities, who arrived before the astonished Florence knew
he was on his way. To please her aunt she saw him, although protesting
that nothing ailed her.
The physician pronounced her nerves weak, prescribed a simple tonic,
agreed with Mrs. Blunden that sea air would prove efficacious, and
drove away, and in another hour Orwell Court was in commotion, for the
business of packing commenced directly, Aunt Margaret declaring that no
time should be lost in effecting the contemplated change.
Mr. Aylwinne, through the agency of a friend, secured them a charming
cottage at Babbicombe Bay, and made every arrangement for the comfort
of the party that his thoughtful consideration could devise. He had
insisted that Mrs. Wilson should accompany them, although she strongly
urged the impossibility of leaving him at Orwell Court alone.
“Don’t be uneasy on my account,” he said; “I shall do very well. When I
begin to get hipped and miss my comforts I will send for you.”
“What’s that?” cried Mrs. Blunden, who had been engaged with some one
else. “Hipped! Why should you be? Of course you will go with us.”
No, he answered decidedly--he should not leave home until he had
received some letters for which he was daily looking.
“But you’ll join us?”
He hesitated. He did not know. He could not say. He would be guided by
circumstances.
She was a little annoyed at her nonsuccess in prevailing with him, and
bade him but a cold farewell. He either would not or did not notice
this, but insisted on accompanying them to the railway station, at
which, owing to Mrs. Blunden’s impatience, they arrived nearly half an
hour before the train was due.
While the boys wandered about the platform, plying Aunt Margaret with
questions, and Mrs. Wilson overlooked the labeling of the luggage,
Florence retreated to the waiting room. Here Mr. Aylwinne found her.
“Don’t let me disturb you, Miss Heriton; I have only come to say
good-by, and to ask you if there is anything I can do for you in
London, where I purpose going to-morrow?”
She said no, and thanked him coldly, but still he lingered.
“I do not wish to force myself into your confidence, yet between old
friends like you and me a little license may be permitted. Give me
leave to speak freely, will you?”
“I do not know what you can mean,” said Florence, surprised at this
preamble.
“Indeed! Then perhaps I am premature--perhaps you do not know. But
there is, or, rather, was, a report in one of the daily papers that I
fancied you would wish to hear confirmed or contradicted.”
Florence grew crimson with mortification. Even if he guessed the
jealous regret she had been nourishing, it was indelicate of him thus
to allude to it.
“I have heard all I wish to hear,” she exclaimed, and hurried toward
her aunt, who now called out that the train was in sight.
“I have looked my last on Orwell Court,” thought Florence when they
were actually on their journey, “perhaps on its master; nor do I think
that I would wish to see him again, even if a wish would bring him
to my feet. If he has engaged himself to this young girl, how cruel
to waver, to keep aloof, now that she is suffering! If the report be
false, why torture me with glances and sighs that reveal his affection,
even while he plainly says he cannot ask me to be his? I will never see
him again if it be possible to avoid it, but persuade Aunt Margaret
to travel--to take me somewhere out of the beaten track, where even
his name cannot reach my ear, and it may be possible in time to forget
him.”