"'Is it sucked with your milk? is it mixed with your flesh? Does it float about everywhere like a mesh, So fine you can't see it? Is it blast? Is it blight? Is it fire? Is it fever? Is it wrong? Is it right? Where is it? What is it? The Lord above, He only knows the strength of love; He only knows, and He only can, The root of love that is in a man.'[1]
For a woman; that's harder still, isn't it, father? But never fret yourself, father, for Denas loves you and mother first of all and best of all." And she slipped on to his knee and stretched out her hand to her mother, and so, kissing the tears off her father's face and the smiles off her mother's lips, she went happily to her sleep.
And a great trust came into the father's and mother's hearts; they spoke long of their hopes and plans for her happiness, and then, stepping softly to her bedside, they blessed her in her sleep. And she was dreaming of Roland Tresham. So mighty is love, and yet so ignorant; so strong, and yet so weak; so wise, and yet so easily deceived.
"One love is false, one love is true: Ah, if a maiden only knew!"
"It is dear honey that is licked off a thorn."
The thing Elizabeth Tresham had done her best to prevent had really happened, but she was not much to blame. Circumstances quite unexpectedly had disarranged her plans and made her physically unable to keep her usual guard over her companion. In fact, Elizabeth's own love-affairs that eventful Saturday demanded all her womanly diplomacy and decision.
Miss Tresham had the two lovers supposed to be the lot of most women--the ineligible one, whom she contradictively preferred, and the eligible one, who adored her in spite of all discouragements. The first was the young rector of St. Penfer, a man to whom Elizabeth ascribed every heavenly perfection, but who in the matter of earthly goods had not been well considered by the church he served. The living of St. Penfer was indeed a very poor one, but then the church itself was early Norman and the rectory more than two hundred years old. Elizabeth thought poverty might at least be picturesque under such conditions; and at nineteen years of age poverty has a romantic colouring if only love paint it.
Robert Burrell, the other lover, had nothing romantic about him, not even poverty. He was unpoetically rich--he even trafficked in money. The rector was a very young man; Burrell was thirty-eight years old. The rector wrote poetry, and understood Browning, and recited from Arnold and Morris. Burrell's tastes were for social science and statistics. He was thoughtful, intelligent, well-bred, and reticent; small in figure, with a large head and very fine eyes. The rector, on the contrary, was tall and fair, and so exceedingly handsome that women especially never perceived that the portal to all his senses was small and low and that he was incapable of receiving a great idea.