AND after this neither Sir Edward nor his young friend appeared for two whole days. Any girl of Winifred Seton’s impetuous character, who has ever been left in such a position on the very eve of the telling of that love-tale, which had been all but told for several weeks past, but now seemed suddenly and artificially arrested just at the moment of utterance—will be able to form some idea of Winnie’s feelings during this dreadful interval². She heard the latch³ of the gate lifted a hundred times in the day, when, alas⁴, there was no one near to lift the latch. She was afraid to go out for an instant, lest in that instant “they” should come; her brain was ringing with supposed sounds of footsteps and echoes of voices, and yet the road lay horribly calm and silent behind the garden hedge, with no passengers upon it. And these two evenings the light came early into Sir Edward’s window, and glared cruelly over the trees. And to be turned inward upon the sweet old life from which the charm had fled, and to have to content one’s self with flowers and embroidery⁵, and the canary singing, and the piano, and Aunt Agatha! Many another girl has passed through the same interval of torture, and felt the suspense⁶ to be killing⁷, and the crisis tragic⁸—but yet to older eyes perhaps even such a dread¹ suspension of all the laws of being has also its comic side. Winnie, however, took care to keep anybody from laughing at it in the cottage. It was life and death to her, or at least so she thought. And her suppressed frenzy⁹ of anxiety, and doubt, and fear, were deep earnest to Aunt Agatha, who seemed now to be living her own early disappointments over again, and more bitterly than in the first version of them. She tried hard to remember the doubt thrown upon Captain Percival by Mary, and to persuade herself that this interposition was providential, and meant to save her child from an unhappy marriage. But when Miss Seton saw Winnie’s tragic countenance¹⁰, her belief in Providence¹¹ was shaken. She could not see the good of anything that made her darling suffer. Mary might be wrong, she might be prejudiced, or have heard a false account, and it might be simply herself who was to blame for shutting her doors, or seeming to shut her doors, against her nearest and oldest neighbours. Could it be supposed that Sir Edward would bring any one to her house who was not a fit associate or a fit suitor, if things should take such a turn, for Winnie? Under the painful light thrown upon the subject by Winnie’s looks, Aunt Agatha came altogether to ignore that providential view which had comforted her at first, and was so far driven in the other direction at last as to write Sir Edward a little note, and take the responsibility upon her own shoulders. What Miss Seton wrote was, that though, in consequence of their late affliction, the family were not equal to seeing visitors in a general way, yet that it would be strange indeed if they were to consider Sir Edward a stranger, and that she hoped he would not stay away, as she was sure his company would be more a comfort to Mary than anything else. And she also hoped Captain Percival would not leave the Hall without coming to see them. It was such a note as a maiden¹² lady was fully¹³ justified¹⁴ in writing to an old friend—an invitation, but yet given with a full consideration of all the proprieties¹⁵, and that tender regard for Mary’s feelings which Aunt Agatha had shown throughout. It was written and despatched when Winnie had gone out, as she did on the third day, in proud defiance¹⁶ and desperation, so that if Sir Edward’s sense of propriety¹⁷ and respect for Mary’s cap should happen to be stronger than Aunt Agatha’s, no further vexation might come to the young sufferer from this attempt to set all right.
 
And Winnie went out without knowing of this effort for her consolation¹⁸. She went down by the Kirtell, winding¹⁹ down the wooded banks, in the sweet light and shade of the August morning, seeing nothing of the brightness, wrapped up and absorbed in her own sensations. She felt now that the moment of fate had passed,—that moment that made or marred²⁰ two lives;—and had in her heart, in an embryo²¹ unexpressed condition, several of Mr. Browning’s minor²² poems, which were not then written; and felt a general bitterness against the world for the lost climax²³, the dénouement which had not come. She thought to herself even, that if the tale had been told, the explanation made, and something, however tragical²⁴, had happened after, it would not have been so hard to bear. But now it was clear to Winnie that her existence must run on soured and contracted in the shade, and that young Percival must stiffen²⁵ into a worldly and miserable²⁶ old bachelor, and that their joint²⁷ life, the only life worth living, had been stolen from them, and blighted²⁸ in the bud. And what was it all for?—because Mary, who had had all the good things of this life, who had loved and been married in the most romantic way, and had been adored by her husband, and reigned²⁹ over him, had come, so far, to an end of her career. Mary was over thirty, an age at which Winnie could not but think it must be comparatively indifferent to a woman what happened—at which the snows of age must have begun to benumb her feelings, under any circumstances, and the loss of a husband or so did not much matter; but at eighteen, and to lose the first love that had ever touched your heart! to lose it without any reason—without the satisfaction of some dreadful obstacle in the way, or misunderstanding still more dreadful; without ever having heard the magical words and tasted that first rapture³⁰!—Ah, it was hard, very hard; and no wonder that Winnie was in a turmoil³¹ of rage, and bitterness, and despair.
 
The fact was, that she was so absorbed in her thoughts as not to see him there where he was waiting for her. He had seen her long ago, as she came down the winding road, betraying herself at the turnings by the flutter of her light dress—for Winnie’s mourning was slight—and he had waited, as glad as she could be of the opportunity, and the chance of seeing her undisturbed, and free from all critical eyes. There is a kind of popular idea that it is only a good man, or one with a certain “nobility” in his character, who is capable of being in love; but the idea is not so justifiable³² as it would seem to be. Captain Percival was not a good young man, nor would it be safe for any conscientious³³ historian to claim for him generous or noble qualities to any marked degree; but at the same time I am not disposed to qualify the state of his sentiments by saying, as is generally said of unsatisfactory characters, that he loved Winnie as much as he could love anything. He was in love with her, heart and soul, as much as if he had been a paladin. He would not have stayed at any obstacle, nor regarded either his own comfort or hers, or any other earthly bar between them. When Winnie thought him distant from her, and contemplating³⁴ his departure, he had been haunting all the old walks which he knew Miss Seton and her niece were in the habit of taking. He was afraid of Mary—that was one thing indisputable—and he thought she would harm him, and bring up his old character against him; and felt instinctively³⁶ that the harm which he thought he knew of her, could not be used against her here. And it was for this reason that he had not ventured again to present himself at the cottage; but he had been everywhere about, wherever he thought there was any chance of meeting the lady of his thoughts. And if Winnie had not been so anxious not to miss that possible visitor; if she had been coming and going, and doing all she usually did, their meeting must have taken place two days ago, and all the agony and trouble been spared. He watched her now, and held his breath, and traced her at all the turnings of the road, now by a puff³⁷ of her black and white muslin dress, and then by a long streaming ribbon catching³⁸ among the branches—for Winnie was fond of long ribbons wherever she could introduce them. And she was so absorbed with her own settled anguish³⁹, that she had stepped out upon him from among the trees before she was aware.
 
“Captain Percival!” said Winnie, with an involuntary cry; and she felt the blood so rush to her cheeks with sudden delight and surprise, that she was in an instant put on her guard, and driven to account for it.—“I did not see there was any one here—what a fright you have given me. And we, who thought you had gone away,” added Winnie, looking suddenly at him with blazing defiant⁴⁰ eyes.
 
If he had not been in love, probably he would have known what it all meant—the start, the blush, the cry, and that triumphant⁴¹, indignant, reproachful, exulting⁴² look. But he had enough to do with his own sensations, which makes a wonderful difference in such a case.
 
“Gone away!” he said, on the spur of the moment—“as if I could go away—as if you did not know better than that.”
 
“I was not aware that there was anything to detain you,” said Winnie; and all at once from being so tragical, her natural love of mischief⁴³ came back, and she felt perfectly⁴⁴ disposed to play with her mouse. “Tell me about it. Is it Sir Edward? or perhaps you, too, have had an affliction in your family. I think that is the worst of all,” she said, shaking her pretty head mournfully—and thus the two came nearer to each other and laughed together, which was as good a means of rapprochement as anything else.
 
But the young soldier had waited too long for this moment to let it all go off in laughter. “If you only knew how I have been trying to see you,” he said. “I have been at the school and at the mill, and in the woods—in all your pet places. Are you condemned⁴⁵ to stay at home because of this affliction? I could not come to the cottage because, though Miss Seton is so kind, I am sure your sister would do me an ill turn if she could.”
 
Winnie was startled, and even a little annoyed by this speech—for it is a fact always to be borne in mind by social critics, that one member of a family may be capable of saying everything that is unpleasant about another, without at the same time being disposed to hear even an echo of his or her own opinion from stranger lips. Winnie was of this way of thinking. She had not taken to her sister, and was quite ready herself to criticise⁴⁶ her very severely⁴⁷; but when somebody else did it, the result was very different. “Why should my sister do you an ill turn?” she said.
 
“Oh!” said young Percival; “it is because you know she knows that I know all about it——”
 
“All about it!” said Winnie. She was tall already, but she grew two inches taller as she stood and expanded and looked her frightened lover into nothing. “There can be nothing about Mary, Captain Percival, which you and all the world may not know.”
 
And then the young man saw he had made a wrong move. “I have not been haunting the road for hours to talk about Mrs. Ochterlony,” he said. “She does not like me, and I am frightened for her. Oh, Winnie, you know very well why. You know I would tremble before anybody who might make you think ill of me. It is cruel to pretend you don’t understand.”
 
And then he took her hand and told her everything—all that she looked fo............