It was hard work for Ralph Corbet to keep from seeking direct information on this head from Mr.Ness,or,indeed,from Mr.Wilkins himself.But he restrained himself,knowing that in August he should be able to make all these inquiries personally.Before the end of the long vacation he had hoped to marry Ellinor:that was the time which had been planned by them when they had met in the early spring before her illness and all this misfortune happened.But now,as he wrote to his father,nothing could be definitely arranged until he had paid his visit to Hamley,and seen the state of affairs.
Accordingly one Saturday in August,he came to Ford Bank,this time as a visitor to Ellinor's home,instead of to his old quarters at Mr.Ness's.
The house was still as if asleep in the full heat of the afternoon sun,as Mr.Corbet drove up.The window-blinds were down;the front door wide open,great stands of heliotrope and roses and geraniums stood just within the shadow of the hall;but through all the silence his approach seemed to excite no commotion.He thought it strange that he had not been watched for,that Ellinor did not come running out to meet him,that she allowed Fletcher to come and attend to his luggage,and usher him into the library just like any common visitor,any morning-caller.He stiffened himself up into a moment's indignant coldness of manner.But it vanished in an instant when,on the door being opened,he saw Ellinor standing holding by the table,looking for his appearance with almost panting anxiety.He thought of nothing then but her evident weakness,her changed looks,for which no account of her illness had prepared him.For she was deadly white,lips and all;and her dark eyes seemed unnaturally enlarged,while the caves in which they were set were strangely deep and hollow.Her hair,too,had been cut off pretty closely;she did not usually wear a cap,but with some faint idea of making herself look better in his eye,she had put on one this day,and the effect was that she seemed to be forty years of age;but one instant after he had come in,her pale face was flooded with crimson,and her eyes were full of tears.She had hard work to keep herself from going into hysterics,but she instinctively knew how much he would hate a scene,and she checked herself in time "Oh,"she murmured,"I am so glad to see you;it is such a comfort,such an infinite pleasure."And so she went on,cooing out words over him,and stroking his hair with her thin fingers;while he rather tried to avert his eyes,he was so much afraid of betraying how much he thought her altered.
But when she came down,dressed for dinner,this sense of her change was diminished to him.Her short brown hair had already a little wave,and was ornamented by some black lace;she wore a large black lace shawl--it had been her mother's of old--over some delicate-coloured muslin dress;her face was slightly flushed,and had the tints of a wild rose;her lips kept pale and trembling with involuntary motion,it is true;and as the lovers stood together,hand in hand,by the window,he was aware of a little convulsive twitching at every noise,even while she seemed gazing in tranquil pleasure on the long smooth slope of the newly-mown lawn,stretching down to the little brook that prattled merrily over the stones on its merry course to Hamley town.
He felt a stronger twitch than ever before;even while his ear,less delicate than hers,could distinguish no peculiar sound.About two minutes after Mr.Wilkins entered the room.He came up to Mr.Corbet with a warm welcome:some of it real,some of it assumed.He talked volubly to him,taking little or no notice of Ellinor,who dropped into the background,and sat down on the sofa by Miss Monro;for on this day they were all to dine together.Ralph Corbet thought that Mr.Wilkins was aged;but no wonder,after all his anxiety of various kinds:Mr.Dunster's flight and reported defalcations,Ellinor's illness,of the seriousness of which her lover was now convinced by her appearance.
He would fain have spoken more to her during the dinner that ensued,but Mr.Wilkins absorbed all his attention,talking and questioning on subjects that left the ladies out of the conversation almost perpetually.Mr.Corbet recognised his host's fine tact,even while his persistence in talking annoyed him.He was quite sure that Mr.
Wilkins was anxious to spare his daughter any exertion beyond that--to which,indeed,she seemed scarely equal--of sitting at the head of the table.And the more her father talked--so fine an observer was Mr.Corbet--the more silent and depressed Ellinor appeared.But by-and-by he accounted for this inverse ratio of gaiety,as he perceived how quickly Mr.Wilkins had his glass replenished.And here,again,Mr.Corbet drew his conclusions,from the silent way in which,without a word or a sign from his master,Fletcher gave him more wine continually--wine that was drained off at once.
