new obstacle in the shape of a note from Leonard himself.
‘My Dear Aubrey,
‘I am very much obliged to Dr. May and Mr. Cheviot for their kind intentions; but I have quite settled with Mr. Axworthy, and I enter on my new duties next week. I am sorry to leave our corps, but it is too far off, and I must enter the Whitford one.
‘Yours, ‘L. A. Ward.’
‘The boy is mad with pride and temper,’ said the Doctor.
‘And his sister has made him so,’ added Ethel.
‘Shall I run down to Bankside and tell him it is all bosh?’ said Aubrey, jumping up.
‘I don’t think that is quite possible under Henry’s very nose,’ said Ethel. ‘Perhaps they will all be tamer by tomorrow, now they have blown their trumpets; but I am very much vexed.’
‘And really,’ added Mr. Cheviot, ‘if he is so wrongheaded, I begin to doubt if I could recommend him.’
‘You do not know how he has been galled and irritated,’ said the general voice.
‘I wonder what Mrs. Pugh thinks of it,’ presently observed the Doctor.
‘Ah!’ said Ethel, ‘Mrs. Pugh is reading “John of Anjou”.’
‘Indeed!’ said the Doctor; ‘I suspected the wind was getting into that quarter. Master Henry does not know his own interest: she was sure to take part with a handsome lad.’
‘Why have you never got Mrs. Pugh to speak for him?’ said Mary. ‘I am sure she would.’
‘O, Mary! simple Mary, you to be Ave’s friend, and not know that her interposition is the only thing wanting to complete the frenzy of the other two!’
Ethel said little more that evening, she was too much grieved and too anxious. She was extremely disappointed in Leonard, and almost hopeless as to his future. She saw but one chance of preventing his seeking this place of temptation, and that was in the exertion of her personal influence. His avoidance of her showed that he dreaded it, but one attempt must be made. All night was spent in broken dreams of just failing to meet him, or of being unable to utter what was on her tongue; and in her waking moments she almost reproached herself for the discovery how near her heart he was, and how much pleasure his devotion had given her.
Nothing but resolution on her own part could bring about a meeting, and she was resolute. She stormed the castle in person, and told Averil she must speak to Leonard. Ave was on her side now, and answered with tears in her eyes that she should be most grateful to have Leonard persuaded out of this dreadful plan, and put in the way of excelling as he ought to do; she never thought it would come to this.
‘No,’ thought Ethel; ‘people blow sparks without thinking they may burn a house down.’
Ave conducted her to the summer-house, where Leonard was packing up his fossils. He met them with a face resolutely bent on brightness. ‘I am to take all my household gods,’ he said, as he shook hands with Ethel.
‘I see,’ said Ethel, gravely; and as Averil was already falling out of hearing, she added, ‘I thought you were entirely breaking with your old life.’
‘No, indeed,’ said Leonard, turning to walk with her in the paths; ‘I am leaving the place where it is most impossible to live in.’
‘This has been a place of great, over-great trial, I know,’ said Ethel, ‘but I do not ask you to stay in it.’
‘My word is my word,’ said Leonard, snapping little boughs off the laurels as he walked.
‘A hasty word ought not to be kept.’
His face looked rigid, and he answered not.
‘Leonard,’ she said, ‘I have been very unhappy about you, for I see you doing wilfully wrong, and entering a place of temptation in a dangerous spirit.’
‘I have given my word,’ repeated Leonard.
‘O, Leonard, it is pride that is speaking, not the love of truth and constancy.’
‘I never defend myself,’ said Leonard.
Ethel felt deeply the obduracy and pride of these answers; her eyes filled with tears, and her hopes failed.
Perhaps Leonard saw the pain he was giving, for he softened, and said, ‘Miss May, I have thought it over, and I cannot go back. I know I was carried away by passion at the first moment, and I was willing to make amends. I was rejected, as you know. Was it fit that we should go on living together?’
‘I do not ask you to live together.’
‘When he reproached me with the cost of my maintenance, and threatened me with the mill if I lost the scholarship, which he knew I could not get, I said I would abide by those words. I do abide by them.’
‘There is no reason that you should. Why should you give up all your best and highest hopes, because you cannot forgive your brother?’
‘Miss May, if I lived with you and the Doctor, I could have such aims. Henry has taken care to make them sacrilege for me. I shall never be fit now, and there’s an end of it.’
‘You might—’
‘No, no, no! A school, indeed! I should be dismissed for licking the boys before a week was out! Besides, I want the readiest way to get on in the world; I must take care of my sisters; I don’t trust one moment to Henry’s affection for any of them. This is no home for me, and it soon may be no home for them!’ and the boy’s eyes were full of tears, though his voice struggled for firmness and indifference.
‘I am very sorry for you, Leonard,’ said Ethel, much more affectionately, as she felt herself nearer her friend of Coombe. ‘I am glad you have some better motives, but I do not see how you will be more able to help them in this way.’
