“I will be quiet and talk with you,     And reason why you are wrong:
 You wanted my love—is that much true?
 And no I did love, so I do:
    What has come of it all along.”
 
R. BROWNING.
 
 
 
SO time went on, as it always does, through weal and woe, bright days and dull. But this winter was weary work to Marion Baldwin. Worse, far worse to bear, she constantly said to herself, than the previous one, spent Mallingford at the Cross House. Then at least, though she had much to endure, she had been free from the reproaches of her conscience, which now, for all her endeavours to silence it, would yet at times insist on being heard. Geoffrey, though she saw him but seldom in the day, constantly haunted her thoughts. She fancied she perceived a change in him. His manner was the same—perfectly gentle: but never more. But the sorrow of his life was beginning to tell on him physically. He was fast losing heart altogether, as day by day he became more convinced of the hopelessness of ever attempting to win back the wife, who indeed had never been his! Yet she was gentler, more cordial even than she had been to him; always ready to agree to his wishes, much less irritable, anxious evidently to do her “duty” by him. She thought sincerely enough, that he was wearied of her, that it was too late to convince him that in her loneliness she was fast learning to prize the love and devotion which when hers, she had so rudely repulsed. For she was truly very desolate at this time. She was pining for affection, yearning for companionship.
 
The remembrance of Ralph was growing to be to her as the memory of the dead, soft and chastened; shrined about with a sacredness of its own, but no longer agonizing and acute. She had grown so thoroughly to realize that she should never see him again, that he was utterly and for ever cut out of her life, that the inward strife and rebellion were at an end. She bowed her head in submission, standing by the grave of her lost love, and in heart said a last, voluntary farewell to the beautiful dream of her girlhood. She could never forget him, or in any sense replace him by another. He was still, and for ever must remain, a part of herself, of her whole existence. An impalpable, an indefinable and wholly immaterial bond yet, at times, seemed to rivet her spirit to his; and never was she so at peace as when she felt most conscious of this still existing sympathy. A consciousness altogether superior to the limitations of time or space—which the tidings of his death would in no wise have affected—a certainty that the noblest part of their natures was still and ever would be united, that, in the purest and most exquisite sense, he still loved her, still cared for her well being.
 
It was to her precisely as if he had long been dead; his own words had foreshadowed this, “as if one of us were dying, Marion.”
 
To some extent he had foreseen how it would be with her—that to her sensitive, imaginative nature, his thus dying to her, fading softly out of her life, was the gentlest form in which the stroke could come. For she was not the sort of woman, “strong-minded, “philosophical,” call it what you will, who could ever have come to look upon him personally as only a friend, to have associated with him in a comfortable “let bygones-be-bygones” fashion, possibly to have attained to a sisterly regard for his wife, in no wise diminished by the gratifying reflection that “though really she is a nice creature, my dear, Lady Severn was not Sir Ralph’s first love.”
 
Ralph had foreseen more. Her nature, though well-balanced and far from weakly, was too clinging, too love-demanding, not, in time, to turn in its outward loneliness and desolation, to the shelter and support (if, indeed, Geoffrey’s countenance did not belie his character) only too ready to welcome it. So much Ralph had read, and correctly enough, of the probable future; and, therefore, as we have seen, even amidst his own supremest suffering, had ventured to predict “a moonlight happiness” for his darling.
 
But he had not foreseen—how could he have done so?—the side influences, the disturbing elements in the way. Marion’s physical prostration at the time, which had rendered it much harder for her to act with her usual unselfishness and self-control; her monotonous, uninteresting, unoccupied life at the Manor Farm, where, partly through circumstances, partly through Geoffrey’s mistaken kindness in sparing her every species of care or responsibility, all tended to foster her morbid clinging to the past, nothing drew her to healthy interest in the present. Above all, Ralph had by no means taken sufficiently into account Geoffrey’s personal share in the whole. He had thought of him as a fine, honest fellow, devoted in his way to his wife; ready, as she herself had said in other words, to do anything for her happiness. True, he had had misgivings as to the effect of Marion’s extending her confidence to her husband, he had thought it was only too probable that her doing so might, for a time at least, have unhappy results. But he had by no means felt certain that she would feel it her duty to tell more than she had already, before her marriage, confided to him. And even in the event of her doing so, he had not realized the manner in which it would act on the young man’s nature. Few, indeed, even of those most intimately acquainted with Geoffrey Baldwin could have done so. These sunny, gleeful natures are often to the full as grievously misunderstood as their less attractive, graver and apparently more reserved neighbours. Oh what fools we are in our superficial, presumptuous judgments of each other! May not the sunlight dance on the surface of the stream without our forthwith pronouncing its waters shallow? Is there not latent in the blackest, coldest iron a vast power of heat and light?
 
Miss Veronica was absent from Mallingford the greater part of this winter. Her general health had been less satisfactory of late, and, after much consideration, it had been decided that the coldest months must be spent by her in a milder climate. In a sense, her absence was a relief to both her friends. It was becoming hard work to attempt to deceive her as to the true state of things at the Manor Farm: her loving scrutiny was more painful to Marion than the cold formality of the generality of her acquaintances; more unendurable the thought of her distress and anxiety than even the consciousness of the gossiping curiosity with which the young wife felt instinctively she was elsewhere discussed.
 
Yet she murmured, sometimes, not a little at this separation from the only friend she could really rely on: but then, in these days, Marion Baldwin murmured, inwardly at least, at everything in her life. There were times when she felt so desperate with ennui and heart-sick at what she believed to be her husband’s ever-growing indifference to her, that she said to herself, if only Veronica were attainable she would break through her reserve and tell her all. Most probably, had the resolution been possible to execute, she would have changed her mind before she was half way to Miss Temple’s cottage!
 
One day at luncheon Geoffrey, to her surprise, told her a gentleman was coming to dinner. She felt considerably amazed and a little indignant. It was not often any guest joined them—“entertaining,” to any extent, not being expected of a young couple in the first months of their married life, and the couple in question being only too ready to avail themselves of the conventional excuse as long as they could with decency do so—and the few times on which their tête-à-tête meal had been interrupted, Geoffrey had given her plenty of notice, had even seemed to make a favour on her side of her receiving any friend of his. To-day, however, he did nothing of the sort. Hence her indignation at what she imagined to be a new proof of neglect and indifference.
 
In a somewhat abrupt manner he made his unexpected announcement. True to her determination, that on her side there should be no shortcoming, she answered quietly enough though at heart by no means as unmoved as she appeared:
 
“Very well. I suppose you have told Mrs. Parker. Do you wish me to be at dinner?”
 
He looked up, slightly surprised. Then answered rather shortly, as had of late become a habit with him. “Of course. Why not? I never thought of your not being at dinner.”
 
“Very well,” she replied again; but added, rather stiffly—“In this case, perhaps you will tell me the gentleman’s name. It might be awkward for me not to have heard it.”
 
All this time Geoffrey’s attention had been greatly engrossed by several letters, printed reports, &c., which he had been reading as he eat his luncheon. For a minute or two he made no reply, seemed not to have heard her question; a trifling neglect, which Marion in her present frame of mind found peculiarly irritating. She sat perfectly still, but no answer being apparently forthcoming, she, having finished her luncheon, rose quietly to leave the room, and had the door-handle in her hand before Geoffrey noticed that she had left the table. The noise of the door opening roused him.
 
“I beg your pardon,” he said, hastily starting up. “You spoke to me. It was very rude of me, but I did not pay attention to what you said. Please tell me what it was.”
 
“It was of no consequence, thank you,” replied Marion, coldly, as she swept past him and crossed the hall to the drawing-room.
 
This was how, silly child, she performed her wifely part to the very letter of the law!
 
But Geoffrey followed her, after delaying a few moments to collect the papers in which he had been so absorbed, and carry them for safety to his private den. This was at the other side of the house, so two or three minutes passed before he gently opened the drawing-room door, intending to apologise still more earnestly to his wife for his inattention. Marion was sitting on the rug before the fire; for, though it was now early spring, it was very chilly; her face he could not at first see, it was hidden by her hands. But the slight noise he made on coming in disturbed her. She looked up hastily, with rather an angry light in her eyes, imagining it was the servant entering, with the everlasting excuse of “looking at the fire,” and feeling annoyed at the intrusion. But when she saw it was her husband her expression changed, and without speaking she quickly turned her face aside. Not so quickly, though, but what Geoffrey perceived what she wished to conceal--she was crying. It was the first time since their marriage he had seen her shed tears. (What different tales that simple little sentence may tell!) It smote him to the heart. With da sudden impulse he approached her, and stooped down, gently laying his hand on her shoulder: “My poor child,” he said, with all the tenderness in his voice that the words could contain, “forgive me. You have enough to bear without my boorishness wounding you so unnecessarily.”
 
Her tears fell faster, but she did not shrink from his touch. She felt ashamed of her petulance and childishness. “It is not that,” she said at last, trying to repress her sobs.
 
“Not my rudeness that has vexed you so?” asked Geoffrey, gently, but feeling already a slight, premonitory chill.
 
“No, you must not think me so silly,” she replied. “It is” —and she hesitated.
 
“What?” he persisted.
 
“Oh, I don’t know—I can’t tell you,” she exclaimed, passionately. “It is not any one thing. It is just everything.”
 
“Oh,” said Geoffrey, with a whole world of mingled feeling in his voice. “Ah! I feared so. Poor child,” he said again, but with more of bitterness than tenderness this time. “Even my pity I suppose would be odious to you otherwise I might be fool enough to show you how genuine it is. But it is better not.” And he was turning away, when her voice recalled him.
 
“No, no,” she cried, “Geoffrey, don’t be so hard. Think how very lonely I am, how friendless! However I may have tried you, however you may think I have deceived you, surely my utter loneliness and wretchedness should soften you to me. I don’t want your pity. I want what now it is too late to ask for—I know it is too late. I know that you would hate me, only you are good, and so you don’t. But I can’t bear you to speak so hardly and bitterly.”
 
Her sobs broke out more wildly. Every word she had uttered was a fresh stab to Geoffrey, interpreted by him as it was. But he controlled his own feelings and spoke very gently to the poor child in her sore distress.
 
“Forgive me if what I said sounded hard and hitter, Marion. Heaven knows I am far from ever intending to hurt you. It is, as you say, too late to undo what is done; but do not make things worse by fancying I would ever intentionally add by even a word to all you suffer. Do me justice at least. So much, I think, I have a right to expect.”
 
His words were gentle but cold. Marion’s sobs grew quiet and her tears ceased. She was hurt, but her pride forbade her to show it except by silence.
 
In a moment Geoffrey spoke again, in a different tone.
 
“You were asking me, I think,” he said, “the name of the gentleman who is coming to dine here. I should have told you before, but I did not know it myself till an hour or two ago when I met him accidentally in Mallingford. It is Mr. Wrexham, my father’s successor in the bank. You remember my telling you about him, perhaps? Very wealthy they say he is. What he cares to be a banker for passes my comprehension.”
 
“He has never been here before?” asked Marion.
 
“In this house? No; and I would not have asked him now, for I don’t like the man, but that I want to have some talk with him. I have called a dozen times at the bank in the last week or two, but have never found him in. So when I met him to-day and he began apologising, I cut him short by asking him to dinner, and saying we could talk over our business after. It seemed to me he did not want to come, but he had no excuse ready. I can’t make him out.”
 
“But you are no longer a partner in the bank, are you?” asked Marion.
 
“In a sort of a way I am still,” said Geoffrey, “that is just what I want to see Mr. Wrexham about. Through your other guardian, Mr. Framley Vere, I have heard of a very good investment, both for your money—yours and Harry’s, I mean—and part of my own. So I want to see about withdrawing some of my capital from the old bank. I have a right to do so at any time, with proper notice and so on. Last year Wrexham urged my doing so very much. Just then it was not very convenient, but now that I wish to do it, there seems some difficulty which I can’t make out. I have never got hold of Wrexham himself, so you understand why I am anxious to see him. To all intents and purposes he is the head of the concern now.”
 
“Why don’t you like him?” said Marion.
 
“I don’t know,” said Geoffrey. “My reasons for disliking him would sound very silly if I put them in words, and yet to myself they don’t seem so. He is oily, and too ready, too business-like.”
 
Marion half laughed.
 
“Surely that is a queer fault to find with a business man,” she said.
 
“Yes, I know it is,” said Geoffrey, “but—”
 
The sentence was never completed. A ring at the bell made Mrs. Baldwin take flight in terror lest it should be the announcement of visitors, whom, with the evident traces of recent tears on her face, she felt anything but prepared to meet. She need not, have been afraid. It was only Squire Copley who had walked over to discuss drains with............