Mrs. Kirkpatrick had been reading aloud till Lady Cumnor fell asleep, the book rested on her knee, just kept from falling by her hold. She was looking out of the window, not seeing the trees in the park, nor the glimpses of the hills beyond, but thinking how pleasant it would be to have a husband once more; — some one who would work while she sate at her elegant ease in a prettily-furnished drawing-room; and she was rapidly investing this imaginary bread-winner with the form and features of the country surgeon, when there was a slight tap at the door, and almost before she could rise, the object of her thoughts came in. She felt herself blush, and she was not displeased at the consciousness. She advanced to meet him, making a sign towards her sleeping ladyship.

‘Very good,’ said he, in a low voice, casting a professional eye on the slumbering figure; ‘can I speak to you for a minute or two in the library?’

‘Is he going to offer?’ thought she, with a sudden palpitation, and a conviction of her willingness to accept a man whom an hour before she had simply looked upon as one of the category of unmarried men to whom matrimony was possible.

He was only going to make one or two medical inquiries; she found that out very speedily, and considered the conversation as rather flat to her, though it might be instructive to him. She was not aware that he finally made up his mind to propose, during the time that she was speaking — answering his questions in many words, but he was accustomed to winnow the chaff from the corn; and her voice was so soft, her accent so pleasant, that it struck him as particularly agreeable after the broad country accent he was perpetually hearing. Then the harmonious colours of her dress, and her slow and graceful movements, had something of the same soothing effect upon his nerves that a cat’s purring has upon some people’s. He began to think that he should be fortunate if he could win her, for his own sake. Yesterday he had looked upon her more as a possible stepmother for Molly; today he thought more of her as a wife for himself. The remembrance of Lord Cumnor’s letter gave her a very becoming consciousness; she wished to attract, and hoped that she was succeeding. Still they only talked of the countess’s state for some time; then a lucky shower came on. Mr. Gibson did not care a jot for rain, but just now it gave him an excuse for lingering.

‘It is very stormy weather,’ said he.

‘Yes, very. My daughter writes me word, that for two days last week the packet could not sail from Boulogne.’

‘Miss Kirkpatrick is at Boulogne, is she?’

‘Yes, poor girl; she is at school there, trying to perfect herself in the French language. But, Mr. Gibson, you must not call her Miss Kirkpatrick. Cynthia remembers you with so much — affection, I may say. She was your little patient when she had the measles here four years ago, you know. Pray call her Cynthia; she would be quite hurt at such a formal name as Miss Kirkpatrick from you.’

‘Cynthia seems to me such an out-of-the-way name, only fit for poetry, not for daily use.’

‘It is mine,’ said Mrs. Kirkpatrick, in a plaintive tone of reproach. ‘I was christened Hyacinth, and her poor father would have called her after me. I’m sorry you don’t like it.’

Mr. Gibson did not know what to say. He was not quite prepared to plunge into the directly personal style. While he was hesitating, she went on —

‘Hyacinth Clare! Once upon a time I was quite proud of my pretty name; and other people thought it pretty, too.’

‘I’ve no doubt —’ Mr. Gibson began; and then stopped.

‘Perhaps I did wrong in yielding to his wish, to have her called by such a romantic name. It may excite prejudice against her in some people; and, poor child! she will have enough to struggle with. A young daughter is a great charge, Mr. Gibson, especially when there is only one parent to look after her.’

‘You are quite right,’ said he, recalled to the remembrance of Molly; ‘though I should have thought that a girl who is so fortunate as to have a mother could not feel the loss of her father so acutely as one who is motherless must suffer from her deprivation.’

‘You are thinking of your own daughter. It was careless of me to say what I did. Dear child! how well I remember her sweet little face as she lay sleeping on my bed. I suppose she is nearly grown-up now. She must be near my Cynthia’s age. How I should like to see her!’

‘I hope you will. I should like you to see her. I should like you to love my poor little Molly — to love her as your own —’ He swallowed down something that rose in his throat, and was nearly choking him.

‘Is he going to offer? Is he?’ she wondered; and she began to tremble in the suspense before he next spoke.

‘Could you love her as your daughter? Will you try? Will you give me the right of introducing you to her as her future mother; as my wife?’

There! he had done it — whether it was wise or foolish — he had done it; but he was aware that the question as to its wisdom came into his mind the instant that the words were said past recall.

She hid her face in her hands.

‘Oh! Mr. Gibson,’ she said; and then, a little to his surprise, and a great deal to her own, she burst into hysterical tears: it was such a wonderful relief to feel that she need not struggle any more for a livelihood.

‘My dear — my dearest,’ said he, trying to soothe her with word and caress; but, just at the moment, uncertain what name he ought to use. After her sobbing had abated a little, she said herself, as if understanding his difficulty —

‘Call me Hyacinth — your own Hyacinth. I can’t bear “Clare,” it does so remind me of being a governess, and those days are all past now.’

‘Yes; but surely no one can have been more valued, more beloved than you have been in this family at least.’

‘Oh, yes! they have been very good. But still one has always had to remember one’s position.’

‘We ought to tell Lady Cumnor,’ said he, thinking, perhaps, more of the various duties which lay before him, in consequence of the step he had just taken, than of what his future bride was saying.

‘You’ll tell her, won’t you?’ said she, looking up in his face with beseeching eyes. ‘I always like other people to tell her things, and then I can see how she takes them.’

‘Certainly! I will do whatever you wish. Shall we go and see if she is awake now?’

‘No! I think not. I had better prepare her. You will come tomorrow, won’t you? and you will tell her then.’

‘Yes; that will be best. I ought to tell Molly first. She has the right to know. I do hope you and she will love each other dearly.’

‘Oh, yes! I’m sure we shall. Then you’ll come tomorrow and tell Lady Cumnor? And I’ll prepare her.’

‘I don’t see what preparation is necessary; but you know best, my dear. When can we arrange for you and Molly to meet?’

Just then a servant came in, and the pair started apart.

‘Her ladyship is awake, and wishes to see Mr. Gibson.’

They both followed the man upstairs; Mrs. Kirkpatrick trying hard to look as if nothing had happened, for she particularly wished ‘to prepare’ Lady Cumnor; that is to say, to give her version of Mr Gibson’s extreme urgency, and her own coy unwillingness.

But Lady Cumnor had observant eyes in sickness as well as in health. She had gone to sleep with the recollection of the passage in her husband’s letter full in her mind, and, perhaps, it gave a direction to her wakening ideas.

‘I’m glad you’re not gone, Mr. Gibson. I wanted to tell you —— What’s the matter with you both? What have you been saying to Clare? I’m sure something has happened.’

There was nothing for it, in Mr. Gibson’s opinion, but to make a clean breast of it, and tell her ladyship all. He turned round, and took hold of Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s hand, and said out straight, ‘I have been asking Mrs. Kirkpatrick to be my wife, and to be a mother to my child; and she has consented. I hardly know how to thank her enough in words.’

‘Umph! I don’t see any objection. I dare say you’ll be very happy. I’m very glad of it! Here! shake hands with me, both of you.’ Then laughing a little, she added, ‘It does not seem to me that any exertion has been required on my part.’

Mr. Gibson looked perplexed at these words. Mrs. Kirkpatrick reddened. ‘Did she not tell you? Oh, then, I must. It’s too good a joke to be lost, especially as everything has ended so well. When Lord Cumnor’s letter came this morning — this very morning — I gave it to Clare to read aloud to me, and I saw she suddenly came to a full stop, where no full stop could be, and I thought it was something about Agnes, so I took the letter and read — stay! I’ll read the sentence to you. Where’s the letter, Clare? Oh! don’t trouble yourself, here it is. “How are Clare and Gibson getting on? You despised my advice to help on that affair, but I really think a little match-making would be a very pleasant amusement now that you are shut up in the house; and I cannot conceive any marriage more suitable.” You see, you have my lord’s full approbation. But I must write, and tell him you have managed your own affairs without any interference of mine. Now we’ll just have a little medical talk, Mr. Gibson, and then you and Clare shall finish your tete-a-tete.’

They were neither of them quite as desirous of further conversation together as they had been before the passage out of Lord Cumnor’s letter had been read aloud. Mr. Gibson tried not to think about it, for he was aware that if he dwelt upon it, he might get to fancy all sorts of things, as to the conversation which had ended in his offer. But Lady Cumnor was imperious now, as always.

‘Come, no nonsense. I always made my girls go and have tete-a-tetes with the men who were to be their husbands, whether they would or no: there’s a great deal to be talked over before every marriage, and you two are certainly old enough to be above affectation. Go away with you.’ So there was nothing for it but for them to return to the library; Mrs. Kirkpatrick pouting a little, and Mr. Gibson feeling more like his own cool, sarcastic self, by many degrees, than he had done when last in that room.

She began, half crying —

‘I cannot tell what poor Kirkpatrick would say if he knew what I have done. He did so dislike the notion of second marriages, poor fellow.’

‘Let us hope that he does not know, then; or that, if he does know, he is wiser — I mean, that he sees how second marriages may be most desirable and expedient in some cases.’

Altogether, this second tete-a-tete, done to command, was not so satisfactory as the first; and Mr. Gibson was quite alive to the necessity of proceeding on his round to see his patients before very much time had elapsed.

‘We shall shake down into uniformity before long, I’ve no doubt,’ said he to himself, as he rode away. ‘It’s hardly to be expected that our thoughts should run in the same groove all at once. Nor should I like it,’ he added. ‘It would be very flat and stagnant to have only an echo of one’s own opinions from one’s wife. Heigho! I must tell Molly about it: dear little woman, I wonder how she’ll take it! It’s done, in a great measure, for her good.’ And then he lost himself in recapitulating Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s good qualities, and the advantages to be gained to his daughter from the step he had just taken.

It was too late to go round by Hamley that afternoon. The Towers and the Towers’ round lay just in the opposite direction to Hamley. So it was the next morning before Mr. Gibson arrived at the hall, timing his visit as well as he could so as to have half-an-hour’s private talk with Molly before Mrs. Hamley came down into the drawing-room. He thought that his daughter would require sympathy after receiving the intelligence he had to communicate; and he knew there was no one more fit to give it than Mrs. Hamley.

It was a brilliantly hot summer’s morning; men in their shirt-sleeves were in the fields getting in the early harvest of oats; as Mr. Gibson rode slowly along, he could see them over the tall hedge-rows, and even hear the soothing measured sound of the fall of the long swathes, as they were mown. The labourers seemed too hot to talk; the dog, guarding their coats and cans, lay panting loudly on the other side of the elm, under which Mr. Gibson stopped for an instant to survey the scene, and gain a little delay before the interview that he wished was well over. In another minute he had snapped at himself for his weakness, and put spurs to his horse. He came up to the hall at a good sharp trot; it was earlier than the usual time of his visits, and no one was expecting him; all the stablemen were in the fields, but that signified little to Mr Gibson; he walked his horse about for five minutes or so before taking him into the stable, and loosened his girths, examining him with perhaps unnecessary exactitude. He went into the house by a private door, and made his way into the drawing-room, half expecting, however, that Molly would be in the garden. She had been there, but it was too hot and dazzling now for her to remain out of doors, and she had come in by the open window of the drawing-room. Oppressed with the heat, she had fallen asleep in an easy-chair, her bonnet and open book upon her knee, one arm hanging listlessly down. She looked very soft, and young, and childlike; and a gush of love sprang into her father’s heart as he gazed at her.

‘Molly!’ said he, gently, taking the little brown hand that was hanging down, and holding it in his own. ‘Molly!’

She opened her eyes, that for one moment had no recognition in them. Then the light came brilliantly into them and she sprang up, and threw her arms round his neck, exclaiming —

‘Oh, papa, my dear, dear papa! What made you come while I was asleep? I love the pleasure of watching for you.’

Mr. Gibson turned a little paler than he had been before. He still held her hand, and drew her to a seat by him on a sofa, without speaking. There was no need; she was chattering away.

‘I was up so early! It is so charming to be out here in the fresh morning air. I think that made me sleepy. But isn’t it a gloriously hot day? I wonder if the Italian skies they talk about can be bluer than that — that little bit you see just between the oaks — there!’

She pulled her hand away, and used both it and the other to turn her father’s head, so that he should exactly see the very bit she meant. She was rather struck by his unusual silence.

‘Have you heard from Miss Eyre, papa? How are they all? And this fever that is about? Do you know, papa, I don’t think you are looking well? You want me at home to take care of you. How soon may I come home?’

‘Don’t I look well? That must be all your fancy, goosey. I feel uncommonly well; and I ought to look well, for —— I have a piece of news for you, little woman.’ (He felt that he was doing his business very awkwardly, but he was determined to plunge on.) ‘Can you guess it?’

‘How should I?’ said she; but her tone was changed, and she was evidently uneasy, as with the presage of an instinct.

‘Why, you see, my love,’ said he, again taking her hand, ‘that you are in a very awkward position — a girl growing up in such a family as mine — young men — which was a piece of confounded stupidity on my part. And I am obliged to be away so much.’

‘But there is Miss Eyre,’ said she, sick with the strengthening indefinite presage of what was to come. ‘Dear Miss Eyre, I want nothing but her and you.’

‘Still there are times like the present when Miss Eyre cannot be with you; her home is not with us; she has other duties. I’ve been in great perplexity for some time; but at last I’ve taken a step which will, I hope, make us both happier.’

‘You’re going to be married again,’ said she, helping him out, with a quiet dry voice, and gently drawing her hand out of his.

‘Yes. To Mrs. Kirkpatrick — you remember her? They call her Clare at the Towers. You recollect how kind she was to you that day you were left there?’

She did not answer. She could not tell what words to use. She was afraid of saying anything, lest the passion of anger, dislike, indignation — whatever it was that was boiling up in her breast — should find vent in cries and screams, or worse, in raging words that could never be forgotten. It was as if the piece of solid ground on which she stood had broken from the shore, and she was drifting out to the infinite sea alone.

Mr. Gibson saw that her silence was unnatural, and half-guessed at the cause of it. But he knew that she must have time to reconcile herself to the idea, and still believed that it would be for her eventual happiness. He had, besides, the relief of feeling that the secret was told, the confidence made, which he had been dreading for the last twenty-four hours. He went on recapitulating all the advantages of the marriage; he knew them off by heart now.

‘She’s a very suitable age for me. I don’t know how old she is exactly, but she must be nearly forty. I shouldn’t have wished to marry any one younger. She’s highly respected by Lord and Lady Cumnor and their family, which is of itself a character. She has very agreeable and polished manners — of course, from the circles she has been thrown into — and you and I, goosey, are apt to be a little brusque, or so; we must brush up our manners now.’

No remark from her on this little bit of playfulness. He went on —

‘She has been accustomed to housekeeping — economical housekeeping, too — for of late years she has had a school at Ashcombe, and has had, of course, to arrange all things for a large family. And last, but not least, she has a daughter — about your age, Molly — who, of course, will come and live with us, and be a nice companion — a sister — for you.’

Still she was silent. At length she said —

‘So I was sent out of the house that all this might be quietly arranged in my absence?’

Out of the bitterness of her heart she spoke, but she was roused out of her assumed impassiveness by the effect produced. Her father started up, and quickly left the room, saying something to himself — what, she could not hear, though she ran after him, followed him through dark stone passages, into the glare of the stable-yard, into the stables —

‘Oh, papa, papa — I’m not myself — I don’t know what to say about this hateful — detestable ——’

He led his horse out. She did not know if he beard her words. Just as he mounted, he turned round upon her with a grey grim face —

‘I think it’s better for both of us, for me to go away now. We may say things difficult to forget. We are both much agitated. By tomorrow we shall be more composed; you will have thought it over, and have seen that the principal — one great motive, I mean — was your good. You may tell Mrs. Hamley — I meant to have told her myself. I will come again tomorrow. Good-by, Molly.’

For many minutes after he had ridden away — long after the sound of his horse’s hoofs on the round stones of the paved lane, beyond the home-meadows, had died away — Molly stood there, shading her eyes, and looking at the empty space of air in which his form had last appeared. Her very breath seemed suspended; only, two or three times, after long intervals she drew a miserable sigh, which was caught up into a sob. She turned way at last, but could not go into the house, could not tell Mrs. Hamley, could not forget how her father had looked and spoken — and left her.

She went out by a side-door — it was the way by which the gardeners passed when they took the manure into the garden — and the walk to which it led was concealed from sight as much as possible by shrubs and evergreens and over-arching trees. No one would know what became of her, and, with the ingratitude of misery, she added to herself, no one would care. Mrs. Hamley had her own husband, her own children, her close home interests — she was very good and kind, ............