As she finished speaking, she walked to the drawing-room window, and stepped out into the garden. Mr Arabin was left in the room, still occupied in counting the pattern on the carpet. He had, however, distinctly heard and accurately marked every word that she had spoken. Was it not clear from what she had said, that the archdeacon had been wrong in imputing to her any attachment to Mr Slope? Was it not clear that Eleanor was still free to make another choice? It may seem strange that he should for a moment have had a doubt; and yet he did doubt. She had not absolutely denied the charge; she had not expressly said that it was untrue. Mr Arabin understood little of the nature of a woman's feelings, or he would have known how improbable it was that she should make any clearer declarations than she had done. Few men do understand the nature of a woman's heart, till years have robbed such understanding of its value. And it is well that it should be so, or men would triumph too easily.
Mr Arabin stood counting the carpet, unhappy, wretchedly unhappy, at the hard words that had been spoken to him; and yet happy, exquisitely happy, as he thought that after all the woman whom he so regarded was not to become the wife of the man whom he so much disliked. As he stood there he began to be aware that he was himself in love. Forty years had passed over his head, and as yet woman's beauty had never given him an uneasy hour. His present hour was very uneasy.
Not that he remained there for half or a quarter of that time. In spite of what Eleanor had said, Mr Arabin was, in truth, a manly man. Having ascertained that he loved this woman, and having now reason to believe that she was free to receive his love, at least if she pleased to do so, he followed her into the garden to make such wooing as he could.
He was not long in finding her. She was walking to and fro beneath the avenue of elms that stood in the archdeacon's grounds, skirting the churchyard. What had passed between her and Mr Arabin, had not, alas, tended to lessen the acerbity of her spirit. She was very angry; more angry with him than with any one. How could he have so misunderstood her? She had been so intimate with him, had allowed him such latitude in what he had chosen to say to her, had complied with his ideas, cherished his views, fostered his precepts, cared for his comforts, made much of him in every way in which a pretty woman can make much of an unmarried man without committing herself or her feelings! She had been doing this, and while she had been doing it he had regarded her as the affianced wife of another man.
As she passed along the avenue, every now and then an unbidden tear would force itself on her cheek, and as she raised her hand to brush it away, she stamped with her little foot upon the sward with very spite to think that she had been so treated.
Mr Arabin was very near to her when she first saw him, that she turned short round and retraced her steps down the avenue, trying to rid her cheeks of all trace of the tell-tale tears. It was a needless endeavour, for Mr Arabin was in a state of mind that hardly allowed him to observe such trifles. He followed her down the walk, and overtook her just as she reached the end of it.
He had not considered how he would address her; he had not thought what he would say. He had only felt that it was wretchedness to him to quarrel with her, and that it would be happiness to be allowed to love her. And that he could not lower himself by asking for her pardon. He had done no wrong. He had not calumniated her, not injured her, as she had accused him of doing. He could not confess sins of which had not been guilty. He could only let the past be past, and ask her as to her and his hopes for the future.
'I hope we are not to part as enemies?' said he.
'There shall be no enmity on my part,' said Eleanor; 'I endeavour to avoid all enmities. It would be a hollow pretence were I to say that there can be a true friendship between us after what has just past. People cannot make their friends of those whom they despise.'
'And am I despised?'
'I must have been so before you could have spoken of me as you did.
And I was deceived, cruelly deceived. I believed that you thought well of me; I believed that you esteemed me.'
'Thought of you well and esteemed you!' said he. 'In justifying myself before you, I must use stronger words than those.' He paused for a moment, and Eleanor's heart beat with painful violence within her bosom as she waited for him to go on. 'I have esteemed, do esteem you, as I never esteemed any woman. Think well of you! Inever thought to think so well, so much of any human creature.
Speak calumny of you! Insult you! Wilfully injure you! I wish it were my privilege to shield you from calumny, insult, and injury.
