Put Yourself in His Place Part 45

"I will not contradict you. I will trust to your own candor. Dear Grace, tell me, have I been so unfortunate as to offend you since then?"

"No."

"Have I lost your respect?"

"Oh, no."

"Have I forfeited your good opinion?"

"Dear me, no." (A little pettishly.)

"Then how is it that I love you better, if possible, than yesterday, and you seem not to like me so well as yesterday?"

"One is not always in the same humor."

"Then you don't like me to-day?"

"Oh yes, but I do. And I shall always like you: if you don't tease me, and urge me too much. It is hardly fair to hurry me so; I am only a girl, and girls make such mistakes sometimes."

"That is true; they marry on too short an acquaintance. But you have known me more than two years, and, in all that time, have I once given you reason to think that you had a rival in my admiration, my love?"

"I never watched you to see. But all that time you have certainly honored me with your attention, and I do believe you love me more than I deserve. Please do not be angry: do not be mortified. There is no occasion; I am resolved not to marry until I am of age; that is all; and where's the harm of that?"

"I will wait your pleasure; all I ask you, at present, is to relieve me of my fears, by engaging yourself to me."

"Ah! but I have always been warned against long engagements."

"Long engagements! Why, how old are you, may I ask?"

"Only nineteen. Give me a little time to think."

"If I wait till you are of age, THAT WILL BE TWO YEARS."

"Just about. I was nineteen on the 12th of December. What is the matter?"

"Oh, nothing. A sudden twinge. A man does not get rolled over sharp rocks, by a mountain torrent, for nothing."

"No, indeed."

"Never mind that, if I'm not to be punished in my heart as well. This resolution, not to marry for two years, is it your own idea? or has somebody put it into your head since we stood on Cairnhope, and looked at Bollinghope?"

"Please give me credit for it," said Grace, turning very red: "it is the only sensible one I have had for a long time."

Mr. Coventry groaned aloud, and turned very pale.

Grace said she wanted to go upstairs for her work, and so got away from him.

She turned at the door, and saw him sink into a chair, with an agony in his face that was quite new to him.

She fled to her own room, to think it all over, and she entered it so rapidly that she caught Jael crying, and rocking herself before the fire.

The moment she came in Jael got up, and affected to be very busy, arranging things; but always kept her back turned to Grace.

The young lady sat down, and leaned her cheek on her hand, and reflected very sadly and seriously on the misery she had left in the drawing-room, and the tears she had found here.

Accustomed to make others bright and happy by her bare presence, this beautiful and unselfish young creature was shocked at the misery she was sowing around her, and all for something her judgment told her would prove a chimera. And again she asked herself was she brave enough, and selfish enough, to defy her father and her G.o.dfather, whose mind was written so clearly in that terrible inscription.

She sat there, cold at heart, a long time, and at last came to a desperate resolution.

"Give me my writing-desk."

Jael brought it her.

"Sit down there where I can see you; and don't hide your tears from me. I want to see you cry. I want every help. I wasn't born to make everybody miserable: I am going to end it."

She wrote a little, and then she stopped, and sighed; then she wrote a little more, and stopped, and sighed. Then she burned the letter, and began again; and as she wrote, she sighed; and as she wrote on, she moaned.

And, as she wrote on, the tears began to fall upon the paper.

It was piteous to see the struggle of this lovely girl, and the patient fort.i.tude that could sigh, and moan, and weep, yet go on doing the brave act that made her sigh, and moan, and weep.

At last, the letter was finished, and directed; and Grace put it in her bosom, and dismissed Jael abruptly, almost harshly, and sat down, cold and miserable, before the fire.

At dinner-time her eyes were so red she would not appear. She pleaded headache, and dined in her own room.

Meantime Mr. Coventry pa.s.sed a bitter time.

He had heard young Little say, "Wait two years." And now Grace was evading and procrastinating, and so, literally, obeying that young man, with all manner of false pretenses. This was a revelation, and cast back a bright light on many suspicious things he had observed in the church.

He was tortured with jealous agony. And it added to his misery that he could not see his way to any hostilities.

Little could easily be driven out of the country, for that matter; he had himself told them both how certainly that would befall him if he was betrayed to the Unions. But honor and grat.i.tude forbade this line; and Coventry, in the midst of his jealous agony, resisted that temptation fiercely, would not allow his mind even to dwell upon it for a moment.

He recalled all his experiences; and, after a sore struggle of pa.s.sion, he came to some such conclusion as this: that Grace would have married him if she had not unexpectedly fallen in with Little, under very peculiar and moving circ.u.mstances; that an accident of this kind would never occur again, and he must patiently wear out the effect of it.

He had observed that in playing an uphill game of love the lover must constantly ask himself, "What should I do, were I to listen to my heart?" and having ascertained that, must do the opposite. So now Mr.

Coventry grimly resolved to control his wishes for a time, to hide his jealousy, to hide his knowledge of her deceit, to hide his own anger. He would wait some months before he again asked her to marry him, unless he saw a change in her; and, meantime, he would lay himself out to please her, trusting to this, that there could be no intercourse by letter between her and a workman, and they were not likely to meet again in a hurry.

It required considerable fort.i.tude to curb his love and jealousy, and settle on this course. But he did conquer after a hard struggle, and prepared to meet Miss Carden at dinner with artificial gayety.

But she did not appear; and that set Mr. Coventry thinking again.

Why should she have a headache? He had a rooted disbelief in women's headaches. His own head had far more reason to ache, and his heart too.

He puzzled himself all dinner-time about this headache, and was very bad company.

Soon after dinner he took a leaf out of her book, pretended headache, and said he should like to take a turn by himself in the air.

What he really wanted to do was to watch Miss Carden's windows, for he had all manner of ugly suspicions.