He found himself distinctly regretting that he had suffered himself to be engaged so early in life;and having become conscious of the temptation and not having repelled it at once,of course it returned and returned,and gradually obtained the mastery over him.What was to be gained by keeping to his engagement with Ellinor?He should have a delicate wife to look after,and even more than the common additional expenses of married life.He should have a father-in-law whose character at best had had only a local and provincial respectability,which it was now daily losing by habits which were both sensual and vulgarising;a man,too,who was strangely changing from joyous geniality into moody surliness.Besides,he doubted if,in the evident change in the prosperity of the family,the fortune to be paid down on the occasion of his marriage to Ellinor could be forthcoming.And above all,and around all,there hovered the shadow of some unrevealed disgrace,which might come to light at any time and involve him in it.He thought he had pretty well ascertained the nature of this possible shame,and had little doubt it would turn out to be that Dunster's disappearance,to America or elsewhere,had been an arranged plan with Mr.Wilkins.Although Mr.Ralph Corbet was capable of suspecting him of this mean crime (so far removed from the impulsive commission of the past sin which was dragging him daily lower and lower down),it was of a kind that was peculiarly distasteful to the acute lawyer,who foresaw how such base conduct would taint all whose names were ever mentioned,even by chance,in connection with it.He used to lie miserably tossing on his sleepless bed,turning over these things in the night season.He was tormented by all these thoughts;he would bitterly regret the past events that connected him with Ellinor,from the day when he first came to read with Mr.Ness up to the present time.But when he came down in the morning,and saw the faded Ellinor flash into momentary beauty at his entrance into the dining-room,and when she blushingly drew near with the one single flower freshly gathered,which it had been her custom to place in his button-hole when he came down to breakfast,he felt as if his better self was stronger than temptation,and as if he must be an honest man and honourable lover,even against his wish.
As the day wore on the temptation gathered strength.Mr.Wilkins came down,and while he was on the scene Ellinor seemed always engrossed by her father,who apparently cared little enough for all her attentions.Then there was a complaining of the food,which did not suit the sickly palate of a man who had drunk hard the night before;and possibly these complaints were extended to the servants,and their incompleteness or incapacity was thus brought prominently before the eyes of Ralph,who would have preferred to eat a dry crust in silence,or to have gone without breakfast altogether,if he could have had intellectual conversation of some high order,to having the greatest dainties with the knowledge of the care required in their preparation thus coarsely discussed before him.By the time such breakfasts were finished,Ellinor looked thirty,and her spirits were gone for the day.It had become difficult for Ralph to contract his mind to her small domestic interests,and she had little else to talk to him about,now that he responded but curtly to all her questions about himself,and was weary of professing a love which he was ceasing to feel,in all the passionate nothings which usually make up so much of lovers'talk.The books she had been reading were old classics,whose place in literature no longer admitted of keen discussion;the poor whom she cared for were all very well in their way;and,if they could have been brought in to illustrate a theory,hearing about them might have been of some use;but,as it was,it was simply tiresome to hear day after day of Betty Palmer's rheumatism and Mrs.Kay's baby's fits.There was no talking politics with her,because she was so ignorant that she always agreed with everything he said.
He even grew to find luncheon and Miss Monro not unpleasant varieties to his monotonous tete-a-tetes.Then came the walk,generally to the town to fetch Mr.Wilkins from his office;and once or twice it was pretty evident how he had been employing his hours.One day in particular his walk was so unsteady and his speech so thick,that Ralph could only wonder how it was that Ellinor did not perceive the cause;but she was too openly anxious about the headache of which her father complained to have been at all aware of the previous self-indulgence which must have brought it on.This very afternoon,as ill-luck would have it,the Duke of Hinton and a gentleman whom Ralph had met in town at Lord Bolton's rode by,and recognised him;saw Ralph supporting a tipsy man with such quiet friendly interest as must show all passers-by that they were previous friends.Mr.Corbet chafed and fumed inwardly all the way home after this unfortunate occurrence;he was in a thoroughly evil temper before they reached Ford Bank,but he had too much self-command to let this be very apparent.He turned into the shrubbery paths,leaving Ellinor to take her father into the quietness of his own room,there to lie down and shake off his headache.
Ralph walked along,ruminating in gloomy mood as to what was to be done;how he could best extricate himself from the miserable relation in which he had placed himself by giving way to impulse.Almost before he was aware,a little hand stole within his folded arms,and Ellinor's sweet sad eyes looked into his.
"I have put papa down for an hour's rest before dinner,"said she.
"His head seems to ache terribly."
Ralph was silent and unsympathising,trying to nerve himself up to be disagreeable,but finding it difficult in the face of such sweet trust.
"Do you remember our conversation last autumn,Ellinor?"he began at length.