Then next morning, there is an empty chair at the breakfast table. "The Squire left early on business." Without any warning--any courteous message? One evening at home, after a long absence, and then--off again! A good Catholic, it seems, lives in the train, and makes himself the catspaw of all who wish to use him for their own ends!
... As to that old peasant, Scarsbrook, what could be more arbitrary, more absurd, than Mr. Helbeck's behaviour? The matter turns out to be serious. Fright blanches the old fellow's beard and hair; he takes to his bed, and the doctor talks of severe "nervous shock"--very serious, often deadly, at the patient's age. Why not confess everything at once, set things straight, free the poor shaken mind from its oppression? Who's afraid?--what harm is there in an after-dinner stroll?
But there!--truth apparently is what no one wants, what no one will have--least of all, Mr. Helbeck. She sees a meeting in the park, under the oaks--the same tall man and the girl--the girl bound impetuously for confession, and the soothing of old Scarsbrook's terrors once for all--the man standing in the way, as tough and prickly as one of his own hawthorns. Courtesy, of course! there is no one can make courtesy so galling; and then such a shooting out of will and personality, so sudden, so volcanic a heat of remonstrance! And a woman is such a poor ill-strung creature, even the boldest of them! She yields when she should have pressed forward--goes home to rage, when she should have stayed to wrestle.
Afterwards, another absence--the old house silent as the grave--and Augustina so fretful, so wearisome! But she is better, much better. How unscrupulous are doctors, and those other persons who make them say exactly what suits the moment!
The dulness seems to grow with the June heat. Soon it becomes intolerable. Nobody comes, nobody speaks; no mind offers itself to yours for confidence and sympathy. Well, but change and excitement of some sort one _must_ have!--who is to blame, if you get it where you can?
A day in Froswick with Hubert Mason? Yes--why not? Polly proposes it--has proposed it once or twice before to no purpose. For two months now the young man has been in training. Polly writes to him often; Laura sometimes wonders whether the cross-examinations through which Polly puts her may not partly be for Hubert's benefit. She herself has written twice to him in answer to some half-dozen letters, has corrected his song for him--has played altogether a very moral and sisterly part. Is the youth really in love? Perhaps. Will it do him any harm?