Jeffray’s whole soul was filled with melancholy delight. Was not this black-haired Bess akin to all this beauty, this starting forth of colors, this uprushing of sound? The light in her eyes, surely it had set his soul on fire. And the sweet scent of her clothes, like hay on a June morning, should he forget it to the day of his death?
He slept but little that night, tossing to and fro—and thinking of Bess. Even when he slept he dreamed of her, and waking—seemed to catch her face looking out at him from the gloom. Ever and again, with a rallying of his loyalty to Jilian, he strove to put the thought of the girl out of his head. It was but the old battle betwixt nature and the sentimental but very jealous ordinances of civilization. On the one hand, romance pleaded, on the other, prosaic proprieties of life propounded the doctrine of peace and respectable monotony.
Richard came from his bedroom feeling feverish and heavy about the eyes next morning. It was but a just judgment on the physical part of him, he imagined, for the emotional debauch of yesterday. He ate his breakfast in solitude, staring morosely out of the window, and watching the clouds move across the sky. Depression had followed on exaltation, and he was moved to regard the passion of yesterday in a somewhat more stern and moral light. No, he would not meet Bess on Thursday. If she were in trouble she could come to him at Rodenham and he would help her. Heavens, if his escapade came to Miss Jilian’s ears there would be excitement enough for him in the home of the Hardacres! He would go and see Jilian that very morning. Her presence would chasten him and enable him to realize more acutely the disloyalty of his attraction towards poor Bess.
Probably Miss Hardacre was puzzled by her betrothed’s melancholy as they walked on the terrace that day with Jilian’s two spaniels playing about her feet. The lady’s quick wits were soon at work to discover the meaning of her dear Richard’s moodiness. Had she been oversharp with him concerning poor Mary Sugg? Jeffray smiled at her with genuine candor, and confessed that the parson’s daughter had nothing to do with his depression. He was vexed with a headache; so much Miss Hardacre could cajole from him, and it was enough to enable her to be sympathetic.