The only place of refuge he had found had been Up-Hill.  The day after the catastrophe he fought his way there, and with passionate tears and complaints told Ducie the terrible story.  Ducie had some memories of her own wilful marriage, which made her tolerant with Harry.  She had also been accused of causing her mother’s death; and though she knew herself to be innocent, she had suffered by the accusation.  She understood Harry’s trouble as few others could have done; and though a good deal of his evident misery was on account of his separation from Beatrice, Ducie did not suspect this, and really believed the young man to be breaking his heart over the results of his rash communication.

He was agreeably surprised, also, to find that Stephen treated him with a consideration he had never done when he was a dashing officer, with all his own small world at his feet.  For when any man was in trouble, Steve Latrigg was sure to take that man’s part.  He did not ask too particularly into the trouble.  He had a way of saying to Ducie, “There will be faults on both sides.  If two stones knock against each other until they strike fire, you may be sure both of them have been hard, mother.  Any way, Harry is in trouble, and there is none but us to stand up for him.”

But in spite of Steve’s constant friendship, and Ducie’s never-failing sympathy, Harry had a bad six weeks.  There were days during them when he stood in the shadow of death, with almost the horror of a parricide in his heart.  Long, lonely days, empty of every thing but anxiety and weariness.  Long, stormy days, when he had not even the relief of a walk to Up-Hill.  Days in which strangers slighted him.  Days in which his mother and Charlotte could not even bear to see him.  Days in which he fancied the servants disliked and neglected him.  He was almost happy one afternoon when Stephen met him on the hillside, and said, “The squire is much better.  The doctors think he is in no immediate danger.  You might go to your wife, Harry, I should say.”

“I am glad, indeed, to hear the squire is out of danger.  And I long to go to my sick wife.  I get little credit for staying here.  I really believe, Steve, that people accuse me of waiting to step into father’s shoes.  And yet if I go away they will say things just as cruel and untrue.”

But he went away before day-dawn next morning.  Charlotte came down-stairs, and served his coffee; but Mrs. Sandal was watching the squire, who had fallen into a deep sleep.  Charlotte wept much, and said little; and Harry felt at that hour as if he were being very badly treated.  He could scarcely swallow; and the intense silence of the house made every slight noise, every low word, so distinct and remarkable, that he felt the constraint to be really painful.

“Well,” he said, rising in haste, “I may as well go without a kind word.  I am not to have one, apparently.”

“Who is here to speak it?  Can father? or mother? or I?  But you have that woman.”