第74章

At the same time a slight constraint of manner was visible between them for the remainder of the afternoon.The tide turned,and they were obliged to ascend to higher ground.The day glided on to its end with the usual quiet dreamy passivity of such occasions--when every deed done and thing thought is in endeavouring to avoid doing and thinking more.Looking idly over the verge of a crag,they beheld their stone dining-table gradually being splashed upon and their crumbs and fragments all washed away by the incoming sea.The vicar drew a moral lesson from the scene;Knight replied in the same satisfied strain.And then the waves rolled in furiously--the neutral green-and-blue tongues of water slid up the slopes,and were metamorphosed into foam by a careless blow,falling back white and faint,and leaving trailing followers behind.

The passing of a heavy shower was the next scene--driving them to shelter in a shallow cave--after which the horses were put in,and they started to return homeward.By the time they reached the higher levels the sky had again cleared,and the sunset rays glanced directly upon the wet uphill road they had climbed.The ruts formed by their carriage-wheels on the ascent--a pair of Liliputian canals--were as shining bars of gold,tapering to nothing in the distance.Upon this also they turned their backs,and night spread over the sea.

The evening was chilly,and there was no moon.Knight sat close to Elfride,and,when the darkness rendered the position of a person a matter of uncertainty,particularly close.Elfride edged away.

I hope you allow me my place ungrudgingly?he whispered.

Oh yes;tis the least I can do in common civility,she said,accenting the words so that he might recognize them as his own returned.

Both of them felt delicately balanced between two possibilities.

Thus they reached home.

To Knight this mild experience was delightful.It was to him a gentle innocent time--a time which,though there may not be much in it,seldom repeats itself in a mans life,and has a peculiar dearness when glanced at retrospectively.He is not inconveniently deep in love,and is lulled by a peaceful sense of being able to enjoy the most trivial thing with a childlike enjoyment.The movement of a wave,the colour of a stone,anything,was enough for Knights drowsy thoughts of that day to precipitate themselves upon.Even the sermonizing platitudes the vicar had delivered himself of--chiefly because something seemed to be professionally required of him in the presence of a man of Knights proclivities--were swallowed whole.The presence of Elfride led him not merely to tolerate that kind of talk from the necessities of ordinary courtesy;but he listened to it--took in the ideas with an enjoyable make-believe that they were proper and necessary,and indulged in a conservative feeling that the face of things was complete.

Entering her room that evening Elfride found a packet for herself on the dressing-table.How it came there she did not know.She tremblingly undid the folds of white paper that covered it.Yes;it was the treasure of a morocco case,containing those treasures of ornament she had refused in the daytime.

Elfride dressed herself in them for a moment,looked at herself in the glass,blushed red,and put them away.They filled her dreams all that night.Never had she seen anything so lovely,and never was it more clear that as an honest woman she was in duty bound to refuse them.Why it was not equally clear to her that duty required more vigorous co-ordinate conduct as well,let those who dissect her say.

The next morning glared in like a spectre upon her.It was Stephens letter-day,and she was bound to meet the postman--to stealthily do a deed she had never liked,to secure an end she now had ceased to desire.

But she went.

There were two letters.

One was from the bank at St.Launces,in which she had a small private deposit--probably something about interest.She put that in her pocket for a moment,and going indoors and upstairs to be safer from observation,tremblingly opened Stephens.

What was this he said to her?

She was to go to the St.Launces Bank and take a sum of money which they had received private advices to pay her.

The sum was two hundred pounds.

There was no check,order,or anything of the nature of guarantee.

In fact the information amounted to this:the money was now in the St.Launces Bank,standing in her name.

She instantly opened the other letter.It contained a deposit-note from the bank for the sum of two hundred pounds which had that day been added to her account.Stephens information,then,was correct,and the transfer made.

I have saved this in one year,Stephens letter went on to say,and what so proper as well as pleasant for me to do as to hand it over to you to keep for your use?I have plenty for myself,independently of this.Should you not be disposed to let it lie idle in the bank,get your father to invest it in your name on good security.It is a little present to you from your more than betrothed.He will,I think,Elfride,feel now that my pretensions to your hand are anything but the dream of a silly boy not worth rational consideration.

With a natural delicacy,Elfride,in mentioning her fathers marriage,had refrained from all allusion to the pecuniary resources of the lady.

Leaving this matter-of-fact subject,he went on,somewhat after his boyish manner: