"What have you said to Harriet Wesden?"
"To whom!"
The horror on his face expressed the facts of the case at once, before the next words escaped him.
"It was--Harriet Wesden then!"
"Yes."
"And she came in to see me, and a.s.sumed your character, Mattie?" he said; "why did you let her in?"
"I don"t know," murmured Mattie; "she was anxious about you, and she had come hither to make inquiries without intruding upon you, until I--I advised her to come."
"For what reason?" he asked in a low tone.
"I thought that you two might become better friends again, and----"
"Ah! no more of that," he interrupted; "that was like my good sister Mattie, striving for everybody"s happiness, except her own, perhaps.
Mattie, you talk as if I had my sight, and were strong enough to win my way in life yet. You so quick of perception, and with such a knowledge of the world--you!" he reiterated.
"Misfortune will never turn Harriet Wesden away from any one whom she has loved--it would not stand in the way of any true woman. And oh! sir, if I may speak of her once again--just this once--"
"You may not," was his fierce outcry; "Mattie, I ask you not, in mercy to me!"
"Why?" persisted Mattie.
"I don"t know--let me be in peace."
It was his old sullenness--his old gloom. Back from the past, into which Mattie"s efforts had driven it, stole forth that morbid despondency which had kept him weak and hopeless. The remainder of that day the old enemy was too strong for any effort of Sidney"s strange companion, and Mattie felt disheartened by her ill success.
CHAPTER IV.
A NEW DECISION.
Sidney Hinchford rose the next morning in better spirits, and Mattie in worse. Half the night in his own room Sidney had reflected on his vexatious sullenness of the preceding day, and on the effect it most have had on Mattie; half the night, Mattie in her room had pondered on the strangeness of the incidents of the last four-and-twenty hours--on that new demeanour of Harriet Wesden, which implied so much, and yet explained so little.
After all, Mattie thought, was she right in staying there? Had she treated her father well in leaving him without a fair confession of that truth which she had breathed into the ears of a dying man, and scarcely owned till then unto herself? She had not come there with any sinister design of winning, by force as it were, a place in Sidney Hinchford"s heart; she had never dreamed for an instant--she did not dream then!--of ever becoming his wife, with a right to take her place at his side and fight his battles for him.
She had been actuated by motives the purest and the best--but who believed her? Had not her father mistrusted her? Had not Harriet, who understood her so well she thought, regarded her as one scheming for herself?--she whose only scheme was to bring two lovers together once more, and see them happy at each other"s side. For an instant she had not thought that she was "good enough" for Sidney Hinchford; she who had been an outcast from society, an object of suspicion to the police, a beggar, and a thief! No matter that she had been saved from destruction and was now living an exemplary life, or that misfortune had altered Sidney and rendered him dependent on another"s help, he was still the being above her by birth, education, position, and she could but offer him disgrace.
With that conviction impressed upon her, conscious that Sidney had improved and would continue to improve, an object of distrust to her best friends--why not to the neighbours who watched them about the streets and talked about them?--only judged fairly and honourably by him she served, was it right to stop--was there any need for further stay there?
She was thinking of this over breakfast--afterwards in her little business round, during which period another visitor had forced himself into Sidney"s presence, without exercising much courtesy in the effort.
Ann Packet had opened the street-door, and looked inclined to shut it again, had not the visitor forestalled her--she was never very quick in her movements--by springing on to the mat, and thence with a bound to the parlour door.
"Oh, my goodness! you mustn"t go in there. Master left word that you were never to be shown into him again on any pertence."
"Where"s Mattie?"
"Gone out for orders," said Ann. "Just step in this room, sir, and wait a bit."
"Young woman, I shall do nothing of the kind. When my daughter comes in, tell her where I am. That"s your business; mind it, if you please."
Mr. Gray turned the handle of the door, and walked into the room.
"Good morning, Mr. Hinchford."
Sidney recognized that voice at least--the voice of a man who had worried him to death with his religious opinions--and his face lengthened.
"You here?"
"Yes, I have come again," he answered, drawing a chair close to the table, and confronting Sidney. "I suppose you thought that I had given you up as irreclaimable."
"I had hoped so," was the dry answer.
"Given my daughter up, too."
"No; that wasn"t likely."
"Indeed--why not?"
"We don"t give up our best friends, those who have won upon our hearts most, in a hurry."
"Do you mean that for me, or is that another side to your confounded obstinacy? Won"t you give her up to me, her father?"
"If you wish it. I cannot set myself in opposition to you. The remembrance of a dear father of my own would not lead me, did I possess the power, to stand in opposition to you."
"You--will side with me, then, in telling her that it is not right to stay here?"
"Not right! You thought so once?"
"Not for an instant."
"She is here with your consent?"
"Did she tell you that? Don"t please say that my Mattie ever told you that?"
Sidney considered. No, she had not said so, he remembered.
"She came against my will, full of a foolish idea of doing you good, and no power of mine could stop her," said Gray.
"Against your will?"
"I said she did," said Mr. Gray, sharply; "don"t you believe me?"