Part 104 (1/2)

Well, all the better. It was decided. He would not look at her face any more. He could not bear it.

He rushed away from the bower and made for the seaside; but he soon returned another way, gained his own room, and there burnt the fragments of the letter to ashes.

But, though he was impenitent, remorse was not subdued. He could not look Grace Carden in the face now. So he sent word he must go back to Hillsborough directly.

He packed his bag and went down-stairs with it.

On the last landing he met Grace Carden. She started a little.

”What! going away?”

”Yes, Miss Carden.”

”No bad news, I hope?” said she, kindly.

The kindly tone coming from her, to whom he had shown no mercy, went through that obdurate heart.

”No--no,” he faltered; ”but the sight of your unhappiness--Let me go. I am a miserable man!”

And with this he actually burst out crying and ran past her.

Grace told her father, and asked him to find out what was the matter with Mr. Coventry.

Mr. Carden followed Coventry to the station, and Coventry, who had now recovered his self-possession and his cunning, told him that for some time Miss Carden had worn a cheerful air, which had given him hopes; but this morning, watching her from a bower in the garden, he had seen such misery in her face that it had quite upset him; and he was going away to try and recover that composure, without which he felt he would be no use to her in any way.

This tale Carden brought back to his daughter, and she was touched by it. ”Poor Mr. Coventry!” said she. ”Why does he waste so much love on me?”

Her father, finding her thus softened, pleaded hard for his friend, and reminded Grace that she had not used him well. She admitted that at once, and went so far as to say that she felt bound never to marry any one but Mr. Coventry, unless time should cure him, as she hoped it would, of his unfortunate attachment.

From this concession Mr. Carden urged her daily to another, viz., that Mr. Coventry might be permitted to try and win her affection.

Her answer was, ”He had much better content himself with what I can and do give him--my esteem and grat.i.tude and sincere pity.”

Mr. Carden, however, persisted, and the deep affection he had shown his daughter gave him great power. It was two against one; and the two prevailed.

Mr. Coventry began to spend his whole time at Eastbank Cottage.

He followed Grace about with a devotion to which no female heart could be entirely insensible; and, at last, she got used to him, and rather liked to have him about her. He broke her solitude as a dog does, and he fetched and carried for her, and talked when she was inclined to listen, and was silent when he saw his voice jarred upon her bereaved heart.

Without her father, matters might have gone on so for years; but Mr.

Carden had now so many motives for marrying his daughter to Coventry, that he used all his judgment and all his influence. He worked on his daughter's pride, her affection, her sense of honor, and her sense of duty.

She struggled, she sighed, she wept; but, by little and little, she submitted. And, since three months more pa.s.sed with no striking event, I will deviate from my usual custom and speak a little of what pa.s.sed in her mind.

First of all, then, she was so completely deceived by appearances, that she believed the exact opposite of the truth in each particular. To her not only did black seem white, but white black. Her dead lover had given her but half his heart. Her living lover was the soul of honor and true devotion. It was her duty, though not her pleasure, to try and love him; to marry him would be a good and self-denying action.

And what could she lose by it? Her own chance of happiness was gone.

All she could hope for hereafter was the gentle satisfaction that arises from making others happy. She had but a choice of evils: never to marry at all, or to marry Frederick Coventry.