Part 32 (2/2)
After dinner at night he retired to his study leaving her alone in the drawing-room. He let her go up to bed without bidding her good-night.
When he was obliged to be with her at meals he maintained for the most part an obstinate silence.
Yet the cry of the child grew louder. The spirit of the child was not mollified. Its persecution continued and seemed to him to grow more persistent with each pa.s.sing day.
What else could he do? How could he separate himself more completely from Lily?
Canon Alston came one day to solve this problem for him. The Canon had resolved on taking a holiday, and being no lover of solitude in his pleasures, he wished to persuade Maurice to become a gra.s.s widower for three weeks.
”Can you let Lily go?” he said. ”I know it is a shame to leave you alone, but--”
He stopped, surprised at the sudden brightness that had come into Maurice's usually pale and grave face. Maurice saw his astonishment and hastened to allay it.
”I shall miss Lily of course,” he began. ”Still, if you want her, and she is anxious to go--”
”I have not mentioned it to her,” the Canon said.
And at this moment Lily came into the room. The project was laid before her. She hesitated, looking from her father to her husband. Her perplexity seemed to both the men curiously acute, even to Maurice who was on fire to hear her decision. The prospect of solitude was sweet to his tormented heart now that he was possessed by the fancy that Lily's presence intensified his martyrdom. Yet Lily's obvious disturbance of mind surprised him. The two courses open to her were really so simple that there seemed no possible reason why she should look upon the taking of one of them as a momentous matter.
”Well, Lily, what do you say?” the Canon asked, after a pause. ”Will you come with me?”
”But Maurice--”
”Maurice permits it, and I want you.”
”I--I had not meant to leave home at present, father, not till after--”
She stopped abruptly.
”Till after what, my dear?” enquired the Canon.
She made no answer.
”Lily,” Maurice said, trying to make his voice cool and indifferent, ”I think you ought to go. It will do you good. Do not mind me. I shall manage very well for a little while.”
”You would rather I went, Maurice?”
”I think we ought not to let your father go on his holiday alone.”
”I will go,” she said quietly.
So it was arranged. The Canon was jubilant at the prospect of his daughter's company, and asked her where they should travel.
”What do you say to the English Lakes, Lily?” he asked, ”they are lovely at this time of year, and the rush of the tourist season has scarcely begun. Shall we go there?”
”Wherever you like, father,” she said.
The Canon was feeling too gay to notice the preoccupation of her manner, the ungirlish gravity of her voice. That day, in the evening, when she was at dinner with Maurice, Lily said:
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