"Marry Mr. Bennet?" exclaimed Mrs. Eversleigh, her eyes wide with astonishment. "She did not tell me that. Oh, Gilbert, what does it all mean? My heart misgives me, there is something frightfully wrong! She told us last night, without any warning, that she was leaving us. Of course I did not like to question her--I had no right, and her manner was forbidding. But the poor girl looked very sad and unhappy. I spoke to your father about her, but he was too ill and miserable to discuss the subject, or, indeed, any subject. I did not wish him to go to town to-day; but he said it was most important he should go, and he went."
"Did he appear surprised at Miss Thornton's decision?"
"I cannot say he did. When she told him she was going, he only nodded."
"Do you think he knows why she has gone, and why she is going to marry Mr. Bennet?"
"I asked him these very questions, Gilbert; but he said he could not tell me anything. It is all very strange!"
"Very strange!" cried Gilbert. "It is perfectly maddening!"
"Perhaps you had better see your father," suggested Mrs. Eversleigh.
"Yes; I'll go to him at once," said Gilbert.
"You will be gentle and careful, Gilbert!" urged his mother. "More than once lately I have been forced to think the troubles through which your father has recently passed have been almost too much for him. He is all the time in a state of fever both of body and mind. You will not forget that, my son!"
"Certainly not, mother," replied Gilbert.
Eversleigh had expected Gilbert would come to him, but, up to the moment of seeing him, was uncertain how to act.
Gilbert, when he met his father, began by stating he had received an extraordinary letter from Miss Thornton, in which she broke off her engagement with him, and announced her intention of marrying Bennet.
"As soon as I got the letter," Gilbert continued, "I went over to Surbiton to see her, but when I went there I found she had left the house and gone to a friend in Yorkshire. Mother could tell me nothing, so I have come to you to see if you can help me to some understanding of the matter."
"She merely said she had changed her mind."
"Changed her mind! A woman's reason," said Eversleigh, with a dreary smile.
"Kitty was not that kind of woman," declared Gilbert. "There must have been some powerful reason to make her act in this way."