Volume II Part 32 (2/2)

”I never should have known about it, child, till you had, if you had been here. You remember how you went away in a hurry. Who knows?

Perhaps, but for that, none of us would have been any wiser to-day on the subject than we were then. It is very possible.”

”How, ma'am?”

”You disappeared, you know, in one night, and were gone. When Mr. Rhys came home, the next day or the same day, I saw that he was very much disappointed. That roused my suspicions of him; they had been only doubtful before. He is not a person to shew what he thinks, unless he chooses.”

”So I knew; that made me surprised.”

”I saw that he was very much disappointed, and looked very sober; but he said hardly anything about it, and I was forced to be silent. Then in a little while--a few weeks, I think--he received his appointment, with the news that he must sail very soon. He had to leave Pla.s.sy then in a very few days; for he wanted some time in London and elsewhere. I saw there was something more than leaving Pla.s.sy, upon his mind; he was graver than that could make him, I knew; and he was giving up something more than England, I knew by is prayers.

”One night we were sitting here by the fire--it was a remarkably chill evening and we had kindled a blaze in he chimney and shut the windows.

Mr. Rhys sat silent, watching the fire and keeping up the blaze; too busy with his own thoughts to talk to me. I was taken with a spirit of meddling which does not very often possess me; and asked him how much longer he had to stay. He said how long, in so many words; they were short, as pain makes words.

”'How comes it,' I asked, plunging into the matter, 'that you do not take a wife with you? like everybody else.'

”He answered, in dry phrases, 'that it would be presumption in him to suppose that anybody would go with him, if he were to ask.'

”I said quietly, I thought he was mistaken; that anybody who was worthy of him would go; and it could not be _presumption_ to ask anybody else.

”'You do not realize, Mrs. Caxton, how much it would be asking of any one,' he said; 'you do not know what sacrifices it would call for.'

”'Love does not care for sacrifices,' I reminded him.

”'I have no right to suppose that anybody has such a degree of regard for me,' he said.

”I can't tell what in his manner and words told me there was more behind. They were a little short and dry; and his ordinary way of speaking is short sometimes, but never with a sort of edge like this--a hard edge. You know it is as frank and simple when he speaks short as when his words come out in the gentlest way. It hurt me, for I saw that something hurt him.

”I asked if there was not anybody in England good enough for him? He said there were a great many too good.

”'Mr. Rhys,' said I,--I don't know what possessed me to be so bold,--'I hope you are not going to leave your heart behind with somebody, when you go to Fiji?'

”He got up and walked once or twice through the room, went out and presently came back again. I was afraid I had offended him, and I was a good deal troubled; but I did not know what to say. He sat down again and spoke first.

”'Mrs. Caxton,' said he, 'since you have probed the truth, I may as well confess it. I am going to do the unwise thing you have mentioned.'

”'Who are you going to leave your heart with, Mr. Rhys?' I asked.

”'With the lady who has just left you.'

”'Eleanor?'

”'Yes,' he said.

”'Have you told her, Mr. Rhys?' I asked.

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