All night did Winterborne think over that unsatisfactory ending of a
pleasant time, forgetting the pleasant time itself. He feared anew
that they could never be happy together, even should she be free to
choose him. She was accomplished; he was unrefined. It was the
original difficulty, which he was too sensitive to recklessly ignore,
as some men would have done in his place.
He was one of those silent, unobtrusive beings who want little from
others in the way of favor or condescension, and perhaps on that very
account scrutinize those others' behavior too closely. He was not
versatile, but one in whom a hope or belief which had once had its
rise, meridian, and decline seldom again exactly recurred, as in the
breasts of more sanguine mortals. He had once worshipped her, laid out
his life to suit her, wooed her, and lost her. Though it was with
almost the same zest, it was with not quite the same hope, that he had
begun to tread the old tracks again, and allowed himself to be so
charmed with her that day.
Move another step towards her he would not. He would even repulse
her--as a tribute to conscience. It would be sheer sin to let her
prepare a pitfall for her happiness not much smaller than the first by
inveigling her into a union with such as he. Her poor father was now
blind to these subtleties, which he had formerly beheld as in noontide
light. It was his own duty to declare them--for her dear sake.
Grace, too, had a very uncomfortable night, and her solicitous
embarrassment was not lessened the next morning when another letter
from her father was put into her hands. Its tenor was an intenser
strain of the one that had preceded it. After stating how extremely
glad he was to hear that she was better, and able to get out-of-doors,
he went on: "This is a wearisome business, the solicitor we have come to see being
out of town. I do not know when I shall get home. My great anxiety in
this delay is still lest you should lose Giles Winterborne. I cannot
rest at night for thinking that while our business is hanging fire he
may become estranged, or go away from the neighborhood. I have set my
heart upon seeing him your husband, if you ever have another. Do,
then, Grace, give him some temporary encouragement, even though it is
over-early. For when I consider the past I do think God will forgive
me and you for being a little forward. I have another reason for this,
my dear. I feel myself going rapidly downhill, and late affairs have
still further helped me that way. And until this thing is done I
cannot rest in peace."