The daring stroke at Mrs. Sutton's hypothesis of the inseparable
union between esteem and affection, excited her into an impolitic
admission.
"My child, you make my blood run cold! You do not mean that you
could love a man for whose character you had no respect!"
"There is a difference between learning to love and continuing to
love," said Mabel, sententiously. "But we have had enough of useless
talk, aunt. In two days more Winston will be here. Until then, let
matters remain as they are. You can tell Rosa as much or as little
as you like of what has happened. She must suspect that something
has gone awry. To-morrow, I will look up this Mr. Jenkyns, and
deliver the messages with which I am charged--likewise consult the
mason about the 'baronial' fireplace," smiling bitterly.
"You never saw another creature so altered as she is," Mrs. Sutton
bewailed to Rosa, in rehearsing the scene. "If this thing should
turn out to be true, she is ruined and heart-broken for life. She
will become a cold, cynical, unfeeling woman--a feminine copy of her
granite brother."
"If!" reiterated Rosa, testily. "There is not one syllable of truth
in it from Alpha to Omega! I know he is your nephew, and that it is
one af the Medo-Persian laws of Ridgeley that the king can do no
wrong; but I would sooner believe that Winston Aylett invented the
slander throughout, than question Fred Chilton's integrity. There is
foul play somewhere, as you will discover in time--or out of it!"
To Mabel, Frederic's spirited champion said never a word of the
event that held their eyes waking until dawn--each motionless as
sleepless lest her bed fellow should discover her real state.
"I have had no share in causing the rupture. I am not called upon to
heal it," meditated she. "In this, the law of self-preservation is
my surest guide."
Her resolve to remain neutral was sharply and unexpectedly tested
the next afternoon.
The two girls went out for a ramble about four o'clock, taking the
beaten foot-path that led through cultivated fields, and between
wooded hills, to a small post-town two miles distant. The day was
sunless, but not chilly, and when they had outwalked the hearing of
the murmur of rural life that pervaded the barnyard and adjacent
"quarters," the silence was oppressive, except when broken by the
whirr of a partridge, the melancholy caw of the crows, scared from
their feast upon the scattered grains knocked from over-ripe ears of
corn during the recent "fodder-pulling," and, as they neared it, by
the fretting of a rapid brook over its stony bottom.