“Oh, yes;—if it were only for myself I should want nothing.”
“I will do the best I can with Trevelyan.”
“The best will be to make him, and everyone, understand that the fault is altogether his, and not Emily’s.”
“The best will be to make each think that there has been no real fault,” said Hugh.
“There should be no talking of faults,” said Priscilla. “Let the husband take his wife back—as he is bound to do.”
These words occupied hardly a minute in the saying, but during that minute Hugh Stanbury held Nora by the hand. He held it fast. She would not attempt to withdraw it, but neither would she return his pressure by the muscle of a single finger. What right had he to press her hand; or to make any sign of love, any pretence of loving, when he had gone out of his way to tell her that she was not good enough for him? Then he started, and Nora and Priscilla put on their hats and left the house.
“Let us go to Niddon Park,” said Nora.
“To Niddon Park again?”
“Yes; it is so beautiful! And I should like to see it by the morning light. There is plenty of time.”
So they walked to Niddon Park in the morning, as they had done on the preceding evening. Their conversation at first regarded Trevelyan and his wife, and the old trouble; but Nora could not keep herself from speaking of Hugh Stanbury.
“He would not have come,” she said, “unless Louis had sent him.”
“He would not have come now, I think.”
“Of course not;—why should he?—before Parliament was hardly over, too? But he won’t remain in town now—will he?”
“He says somebody must remain—and I think he will be in London till near Christmas.”
“How disagreeable! But I suppose he doesn’t care. It’s all the same to a man like him. They don’t shut the clubs up, I dare say. Will he come here at Christmas?”
“Either then or for the New Year;—just for a day or two.”
“We shall be gone then, I suppose?” said Nora.
“That must depend on Mr. Trevelyan,” said Priscilla.
“What a life for two women to lead;—to depend upon the caprice of a man who must be mad! Do you think that Mr. Trevelyan will care for what your brother says to him?”
“I do not know Mr. Trevelyan.”
“He is very fond of your brother, and I suppose men friends do listen to each other. They never seem to listen to women. Don’t you think that, after all, they despise women? They look on them as dainty, foolish things.”
“Sometimes women despise men,” said Priscilla.
“Not very often;—do they? And then women are so dependent on men. A woman can get nothing without a man.”
“I manage to get on somehow,” said Priscilla.
“No, you don’t, Miss Stanbury—if you think of it. You want mutton. And who kills the sheep?”
“But who cooks it?”
“But the men-cooks are the best,” said Nora; “and the men-tailors, and the men to wait at table, and the men-poets, and the men-painters, and the men-nurses. All the things that women do, men do better.”
“There are two things they can’t do,” said Priscilla.
“What are they?”
“They can’t suckle babies, and they can’t forget themselves.”
“About the babies, of course not. As for forgetting themselves—I am not quite so sure that I can forget myself.—That is just where your brother went down last night.”
They had at this moment reached the top of the steep slope below which the river ran brawling among the rocks, and Nora seated herself exactly where she had sat on the previous evening.
“I have been down scores of times,” said Priscilla.
“Let us go now.”
“You wouldn’t go when Hugh asked you yesterday.”
“I didn’t care then. But do come now—if you don’t mind the climb.” Then they went down the slope and reached the spot from whence Hugh Stanbury had jumped from rock to rock across the stream. “You have never been out there, have you?” said Nora.
“On the rocks? Oh, dear, no! I should be sure to fall.”
“But he went; just like a goat.”
“That’s one of the things that men can do, I suppose,” said Priscilla. “But I don’t see any great glory in being like a goat.”
“I do. I should like to be able to go, and I think I’ll try. It is so mean to be dainty and weak.”
“I don’t think it at all dainty to keep dry feet.”
“But he didn’t get his feet wet,” said Nora. “Or if he did, he didn’t mind. I can see at once that I should be giddy and tumble down if I tried it.”
“Of course you would.”
“But he didn’t tumble down.”
“He has been doing it all his life,” said Priscilla.
“He can’t do it up in London. When I think of myself, Miss Stanbury, I am so ashamed. There is nothing that I can do. I couldn’t write an article for a newspaper.”
“I think I could. But I fear no one would read it.”
“They read his,” said Nora, “or else he wouldn’t be paid for writing them.” Then they climbed back again up the hill, and during the climbing there were no words spoken. The slope was not much of a hill—was no more than the fall from the low ground of the valley to the course which the river had cut for itself; but it was steep while it lasted; and both the young women were forced to pause for a minute before they could proceed upon their journey. As they walked home Priscilla spoke of the scenery, and of the country, and of the nature of the life which she and her mother and sister had passed at Nuncombe Putney. Nora said but little till they were just entering the village, and then she went back to the subject of her thoughts. “I would sooner,” said she, “write for a newspaper than do anything else in the world.”
“Why so?”
“Because it is so noble
