"Please pardon me for detaining you so long," he said hurriedly.
"You have not detained me at all," she replied. "It has been a pleasure to talk to you, for the days are very long and very dull."
"I hope you will soon be as well as ever," he answered; and he turned quickly on his heel and strode away.
"And I hope your father will soon----" But the end of the sentence did not reach his ears. For the moment he was not concerned about himself. The tragedy of his own life seemed of small account. It was the tragedy of her life that troubled him. It seemed a wicked thing that this fragile girl--not yet out of her teens--should marry a man old enough almost to be her grandfather.
What lay behind it, he wondered? What influences had been brought to bear upon her to win her consent? Was she going of her own free will into this alliance, or had she been tricked or coerced?
He recalled again the picture of her when she sat on her horse in the glow of the summer sunshine. She was only a girl then--a heedless, thoughtless, happy girl, who did not know what life meant, and who in all probability had never given five minutes' serious thought to its duties and responsibilities. But eight or nine weeks of suffering had wrought a great change in her. She was a woman now, facing life seriously and thoughtfully. Did she regret, he wondered, the promise she had made? Was she still willing to be the wife of this old man?
Ralph felt the blood tingling to his finger-tips. It was no business of his. What did it matter to him what Sir John Hamblyn or any of his tribe did, or neglected to do? If Dorothy Hamblyn chose to marry a Chinaman or a Hindoo, that was no concern of his. He had no interest in her, and never would have.
He pulled himself up again at that point. He had no interest in her, it was true, and yet he was interested--more interested than in any other girl he had ever seen. So interested, in fact, that nothing could happen to her without it affecting him.
He reached the cottage at length at the far end of the village. It was but a tiny crib, but it was the best they could get at so short a notice, and they would not have got that if Sir John Hamblyn could have had his way.
Ralph could hardly repress a groan when he stepped over the threshold. It was so painfully small after their roomy house at Hillside. The whitewashers and paperhangers had just finished, and were gathering up their tools, and a couple of charwomen were scouring the floors.