The White Dove. William John Locke

his son, who sat staring into the fire. He would have given years of his own happiness to know whether a gnawing suspicion were baseless; but the question could not be put. Sylvester was silent. What troubles were at work behind his sombre brow the old man could not fathom; and Sylvester, though his heart was bursting, could not speak.

      How could he disclose, even to the being who now was dearest to him in the world, his wife's shame, his own dishonour? Better to keep the hideous fact locked up in his breast. But yet, if he could have found a rush of tumultuous words, what heart-ease were in it! So many, with that great gift of expansiveness, had come to his father and gone away comforted, and he, the son deeply loving and deeply loved, was powerless to utter a complaint. He bit his lip to repress a groan.

      And so it was all through the remainder of his residence in Ayresford. His relations with his father continued their old undemonstrative course. To please him, he assumed his wonted cheerfulness and spoke of matters political and parochial. And by degrees the old man forgot the cloud he had seen hanging over him and only thought of his approaching departure. Dorothy came to live at Woodlands, so as to grow accustomed to the change, said Sylvester, and he only saw her on his rare visits. He forced himself to be kind and take notice of her as formerly. But the sight of her was a great pain.

      Ella he avoided as much as possible, never seeing her alone. One day she was standing by the porch as he came up.

      “Is my father in?” he asked.

      “He hasn't yet come back from the office.”

      “I will go and meet him there,” he replied, and went away forthwith.

      “Have you and Syl quarrelled?” asked Miss Lanyon, who had observed the scene from indoors.

      Ella laughed; not a happy laugh.

      “You are behind the times, Aunt Agatha. Nowadays unceremoniousness is a proof of friendship.”

      “I should call it rudeness, my dear,” said Miss Lanyon.

      “That's a proof of affection,” said Ella.

      But she went quickly up to her room, lest the elder lady should see the angry tears that rose in her eyes.

      At first she strove to explain away his change of attitude. Then she examined her own conduct, with a view to discover therein some possible cause. She could find none. A dull sense of pain and dread crept over her. What did it mean? He had kissed her, all but asked her to be his wife, and now, suddenly, he ignored her existence. The realisation of the fulness of her love for him smote her cruelly as she lay awake at night. She shrank, fearful-eyed, from the prospect of life without him. It stretched before her a dreary waste of futile years. Then the quick hope of youth came back. It was some foolish misunderstanding. Sylvester was worried, preoccupied, saddened. There were so many things to be reckoned with in the strenuous life of a man. He would speak, explain. All would be well.

      But the days passed and that of Sylvester's departure drew nigh. He had hurried it on. His successor had arrived, been introduced to the practice; no advantage could be gained by remaining at Ayresford, where all save his father was strangely hateful. Ella waited, but Sylvester never spoke nor looked her way. At last she could bear the mortifying suspense no longer. It was the evening before his departure. She was sitting with Miss Lanyon in the drawing-room after dinner, having left the two men below to their coffee and cigars. Her companion was silently knitting, her eyes somewhat dim, poor soul, at the prospect of Sylvester's absence. Ella went to the piano and tried to play, but her heart was not in the music. The men lingered downstairs. An hour passed. The silence and the aching of her own suspense acted on her nerves. Suddenly she left the room and went downstairs and opened the dining-room door. Both men rose as she stood on the threshold, a graceful figure, with heightened colour and eyes unusually bright.

      “I want to say something to Syl before he goes,” she announced boldly.

      “Here he is,” said Matthew, coming forward. “I was just going into the library for a little as you came in. No; really, Syl, I was. I'll join you upstairs when you have had your chat.”

      “You spoil me, Uncle Matthew,” said the girl, touched, as she always was, by his old-fashioned courtesy. “Why can't Syl and I go into the library?”

      “Because I'm master in my own house, my dear,” smiled the old man.

      He closed the door behind him. Sylvester motioned Ella to a chair.

      “No,” she said. “I have not come to stay.”

      She was silent for a moment, looking at the tip of her slipper that rested on the fender.

      “Have I done anything to offend you lately, Sylvester?” she asked at length.

      “Nothing that I am aware of,” he answered gravely.

      “We don't seem to be such good friends,” she hazarded.

      “I am sure you must be mistaken.”

      The cold formality of the phrase was a knell to her hopes. She looked up somewhat piteously and met hard, unsympathetic eyes.

      “I thought—you made me think—” she began. He raised his hand slightly to check her.

      “If I did,” he said coldly, “I was wrong. I owe you all my apologies.” There was a moment's silence. “If I could say more, I would,” he added.

      But a quickly gathering anger in the girl's heart suddenly broke out. She drew herself up, flaming-cheeked, with eyes flashing through the tears that would come.

      “You have behaved horribly, cruelly, and I want never to see your face again.”

      Sylvester bowed his head. A swift rustle of skirts, a sound of the door, and she was gone. He raised his head and drew rather a choking breath. He knew that Ella had just cause for reproach. But what could be done? The new budding love had been killed outright. He regarded her with aversion, with something akin even to horror. And his heart was as cold as a stone.