The Old Helmet. Volume II

"Talking about stranded lives," she said; "to take another subject, you must forgive me for that one, dear – I think of Mr. Rhys very often."

"His life is not stranded," said Eleanor; "it is under full sail."

"He is alone, though."

"I do not believe he feels alone, aunt Caxton."

"I do not know," said Mrs. Caxton. "A man of a sensitive nature must feel, I should think, in his circumstances, that he has put an immense distance between himself and all whom he loves."

"But I thought he had almost no family relations left?"

"Did it never occur to you," said Mrs. Caxton, "when you used to see him here, that there was somebody, somewhere, who had a piece of his heart?"

"No, ma'am, – never!" Eleanor said with some energy. "I never thought he seemed like it."

"I did not know anything about it," Mrs. Caxton went on slowly, "until a little while before he went away – some time after you were here. Then I learned that it was the truth."

Eleanor worked away very diligently and made no answer. Mrs. Caxton furtively watched her; Eleanor's head was bent down over her sewing; but when she raised it to change the position of her work, Mrs. Caxton saw a set of her lips that was not natural.

"You never suspected anything of the kind?" she repeated.

"No, ma'am – and it would take strong testimony to make me believe it."

"Why so, pray?"

"I should have thought – but it is no matter what I thought about it!"

"Nay, if I ask you, it is matter. Why should it be hard to believe, of

Mr. Rhys especially?"

"Nothing; only – I should have thought, if he liked any one, a woman, – that she would have gone with him."

"You forget where he was bound to go. Do you think many women would have chosen to go with him to such a home – perhaps for the remainder of their lives? I think many would have hesitated."

"But you forget for what he was going; and any woman whom he would have liked, would have liked his object too."

"You think so," said Mrs. Caxton; "but I cannot wonder at his having doubted. There are a great many questions about going such a journey, my dear."

"And did the lady refuse to go?" said Eleanor bending over her work and speaking huskily.

"I do not think he ever asked her. I almost wish he had."

"Almost, aunt Caxton? Why he may have done her the greatest wrong. She might like him without his knowing it; it was not fair to go without giving her the chance of saying what she would do."

"Well, he is gone," said Mrs. Caxton; "and he went alone. I think men make mistakes sometimes."

Eleanor sewed on nervously, with a more desperate haste than she knew, or than was in the least called for by the work in hand. Mrs. Caxton watched her, and turned away to the contemplation of the fire.

"Did the thought ever occur to you, Eleanor," she went on very gravely, "that he fancied you?"

Eleanor's glance up was even pitiful in its startled appeal.

"No, ma'am, of course not!" she said hastily. "Except – O aunt Caxton, why do you ask me such a thing!"

"Except, – my dear?"

"Except a foolish fancy of an hour," said Eleanor in overwhelmed confusion. "One day, for a little time – aunt Caxton, how can you ask me such a thing?"

"I had a little story to tell you, my dear; and I wanted to make sure that I should do no harm in telling it. What is there so dreadful in such a question?"

But Eleanor only brushed away a hot tear from her flushed face and went on with her sewing. Or essayed to do it, for Mrs. Caxton thought her vision seemed to be not very clear.

"What made you think so that time, Eleanor? and what is the matter, my dear?"

"It hurts me, aunt Caxton, the question. You know we were friends, and I liked him very much, as I had reason; but I never had cause to fancy that he thought anything of me – only once I fancied it without cause."

"On what occasion, my love?"

"It was only a little thing – a nothing – a chance word. I saw immediately that I was mistaken."

"Did the thought displease you?"

"Aunt Caxton, why should you bring up such a thing now?" said Eleanor in very great distress.

"Did it displease you, Eleanor?"

"No aunty" – said the girl; and her head dropped in her hands then.

"My love," Mrs. Caxton said very tenderly, "I knew this before; I thought I did; but it was best to bring it out openly, for I could not else have executed my commission. I lave a message from Mr. Rhys to you, Eleanor."

"A message to me?" said Eleanor without raising her head.

"Yes. You were not mistaken."

"In what?"

Eleanor looked up; and amidst sorrow and shame and confusion, there was a light of fire, like the touch the summer sun gives to the mountain tops before he gets up. Mrs. Caxton looked at her flushed tearful face, and the hidden light in her eye; and her next words were as gentle as the very fall of the sunbeams themselves.

"My love, it is true."

"What, aunt Caxton?"

"You were not mistaken."

"In what, ma'am?"

"In thinking what you thought that day, when something – a mere nothing – made you think that Mr. Rhys liked you."