Part 6 (1/2)

”I told you as much as I dared, when I was in London.”

”As much as you _dared_?”

”Dear father would not let me tell very much. He laid his commands on me to say nothing.”

”You should have disobeyed him,” said Sydney marching up and down the darkened study, in which this conference took place. ”It was your duty to have disobeyed him, for his own good----”

”Oh, Sydney, how can you talk to me of duty?” said Lettice, with a sob.

”Why did you not come and see for yourself? Why did you stay away so long?”

The reproach cut deeper than she knew. ”I thought I was acting for the best,” said the young man, half defiantly, half apologetically. ”I did what it was the desire of his heart that I should do--But you, you were at home; you saw it all, and you should have told me, Lettice.”

”I did try,” she answered meekly, ”but it was not very easy to make you listen.”

In other circ.u.mstances he would, perhaps, have retorted angrily; and Lettice felt that it said much for the depth of his sorrow for the past that he did not carry his self-defence any further. By and by he paused in his agitated walk up and down the room, with head bent and hands plunged deep into his pockets. After two or three moments' silence, Lettice crept up to him and put her hand within his arm.

”Forgive me, Sydney, I spoke too bitterly; but it has been very hard sometimes.”

”I would have helped if I had known,” said Sydney gloomily.

”I know you would, dear. And he always knew it, too. That was the reason why he told me to keep silence--for fear of hampering you in your career. He has often said to me that he wished to keep the knowledge of his difficulties from you, because he knew you would be generous and kind----”

Tears choked her voice. Her brother, who had hitherto been quite unresponsive to her caresses, put out his right hand and stroked the trembling fingers that rested on his left arm. He was leaning against the old oak table, where his father's books and papers had stood for so many years; and some remembrances of bygone days when he and Lettice, as boy and girl, sat together with their grammars and lexicons at that very place, occurred a little dimly to his mind. But what was a dim memory to him was very clear and distinct to Lettice.

”Oh, Sydney, do you remember how we used to work here with father?” she broke out. ”How many hours we spent here together--reading the same books, thinking the same thoughts--and now we seem so divided, so very far apart! You have not quite forgotten those old days, have you?”

”No, I have not forgotten them,” said Sydney, in a rather unsteady voice. Poor Lettice! She had counted for very little in his life for the last few years, and yet, as she reminded him, what companions they had been before he went to Cambridge! A suddenly roused instinct of compa.s.sion and protection caused him to put his arm round her and to speak with unusual tenderness.

”I won't forget those old times, Lettice. Perhaps we shall be able to see more of each other by and bye than we have done lately. You have been a good girl, never wanting any change or amus.e.m.e.nt all these years; but I'll do my best to look after you now.”

”I began to think you did not care for any of us, Sydney.”

”Nonsense,” said Sydney, and he kissed her forehead affectionately before he left the study, where, indeed, he felt that he had stayed a little too long, and given Lettice an unusual advantage over him. He was not dest.i.tute of natural affections, but they had so long been obscured by the mists of selfishness that he found it difficult to let them appear--and more difficult with his sister than with his mother. Lettice seemed to him to exact too much, to be too intense in feeling, too critical in observation. He was fond of her, but she was not at all his ideal woman--if he had one. Sydney's preference was for what he called ”a womanly woman”: not one who knew Greek.

He made a brave and manly effort to wind up his father's affairs and pay his outstanding debts. He was so far stirred out of himself that it hardly occurred to his mind that a slur would be left on him if these debts were left unpaid: his strongest motive just now was the sense of right and wrong, and he knew, too late, that it was right for him to take up the load which his own acts had made so heavy.

The rector had died absolutely penniless. His insurance policy, his furniture, the whole of his personal effects, barely sufficed to cover the money he had borrowed. What Sydney did was to procure the means of discharging at once all the household bills, and the expenses connected with the funeral.

”And now,” he said to Lettice, when the last of these dues had been paid off and they took their last stroll together through the already half dismantled rooms of the desolate old Rectory, ”I feel more of a man than I have felt since that terrible night, and I want to get back to my work.”

”I am afraid you will have to work very hard, dear!” said Lettice, laying her hand on his arm, rather timidly. How she still yearned for the full measure of mutual confidence and sympathy!

”Hard work will be good for me,” he said, his keen blue eyes lighting up as if with ardor for the fray. ”I shall soon wipe off old scores, and there's nothing like knowing you have only yourself to look to. My practice, you know, is pretty good already, and it will be very good by and bye.”

”I am so glad!”

”Yes. And, of course, you must never have any anxiety about mother and yourself. I shall see to all that. You are going to stay with the Grahams for a while, so I can come over one day and discuss it. I don't suppose I shall ever marry, but whether I do or not, I shall always set apart a certain sum for mother and you.”

”I have been thinking about the future,” said Lettice, quietly. She always spoke in a low, musical voice, without gesture, but not without animation, producing on those who heard her the impression that she had formed her opinions beforehand, and was deliberate in stating them. ”Do you know, Sydney, that I can earn a very respectable income?”

”Earn an income! You!” he said, with a wrinkle in his forehead, and a curl in his nostrils. ”I will not hear of such a thing. I cannot have my sister a dependent in other people's houses--a humble governess or companion. How could you dream of it!”