Miss Somerset rose, and laid her forehead sadly upon the window-sill.
“Why do I cry for her, like a great baby?” muttered Sir Charles. “She wouldn't cry for me. She has cast me off in a moment.”
“Not she. It is her father's doing. Have a little patience. The whole thing shall be explained to them; and then she will soon soften the old man. 'It is not as if you were really to blame.”
“No more I was. It is all that vile woman.”
“Oh, don't! She is so sorry; she has taken it all to heart. She had once shammed a fit, on the very place; and when you had a real fit there--on the very spot--oh, it was so fearful--and lay like one dead, she saw God's finger, and it touched her hard heart. Don't say anything more against her just now. She is trying so hard to be good. And, besides, it is all a mistake: she never told that old admiral; she never breathed a word out of her own house. Her own people have betrayed her and you. She has made me promise two things: to find out who told the admiral, and--”
“The second thing I have to do--Well, that is a secret between me and that unhappy woman. She is bad enough, but not so heartless as you think.”
Sir Charles shook his head incredulously, but said no more; and soon after fell asleep.
In the evening he woke, and found the Sister watching.
She now turned her head away from him, and asked him quietly to describe Miss Bella Bruce to her.
He described her in minute and glowing terms. “But oh, Sister,” said he, “it is not her beauty only, but the beauty of her mind. So gentle, so modest, so timid, so docile. She would never have had the heart to turn me off. But she will obey her father. She looked forward to obey me, sweet dove.”
“Yes, that is her dream of happiness, to obey.”
The Sister still questioned him with averted head, and he told her what had passed between Bella and him the last time he saw her, and all their innocent plans of married happiness. He told her, with the tear in his eye, and she listened, with the tear in hers. “And then,” said he, laying his hand on her shoulder, “is it not hard? I just went to Mayfair, not to please myself, but to do an act of justice--of more than justice; and then, for that, to have her door shut in my face. Only two hours between the height of happiness and the depth of misery.”