“No, not wrong at all.  It is written, ’A man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave unto his wife,’” was the baffling reply she got, and it silenced her.  And not for that occasion only.

When Bessie retired into the octagon parlor her grandfather stayed behind.  He had been to see Mr. John Short that day, and had heard that a new aspect had come over the electioneering sky.  The Radicals had received an impetus from some quarter unknown, and were preparing to make such a hard fight for the representation of Norminster that the triumph of the Tory party was seriously threatened.  This news had vexed him, but it was not of that he meditated chiefly when he was left alone.  It was of Bessie.  He had founded certain pleasurable expectations upon her, and he felt that these expectations were losing their bloom.  He could not fail to recollect her quietness of last night, when he noticed the languor of her eyes, the dejection of her mouth, and the effort it was to her to speak.  The question concerning her parents had aroused the slumbering ache of old remembrance, and had stung him anew with a sense of her condemnation.  A feeling akin to remorse visited him as he sat considering, and by degrees realizing, what he had done to her, and was doing; but he had his motive, he had his object in it, and the motive had seemed to justify the means until he came to see her face to face.  Contact with her warm, distinct humanity began immediately to work a change in his mind.  Absent, he had decided that he could dispose of her as he would.  Present, he recognized that she would have a voice, and probably a casting voice, in the disposal of herself.  He might sever her from her friends in the Forest, but he would not thereby attach her to friends and kinsfolk in the north.  His last wanton act of selfish unkindness, in refusing to let her see her old home in passing, was evidently producing its effect in silent grieving, in resentment and revolt.

All his life long Mr. Fairfax had coveted affection, and had missed the way to win it.  No one had ever really loved him except his sister Dorothy—­so he believed; and Elizabeth was so like Dorothy in the face, in her air, her voice, her gestures, that his heart went out to her with a yearning that was almost pain.  But when he looked at her, she looked at him again like Dorothy alienated—­like Dorothy grown strange.  It was a very curious revival out of the far past.  When he was a young man and Lady Latimer was a girl, there had been a prospect of a double marriage between their families, but the day that destroyed one hope destroyed both, and Dorothy Fairfax died of that grief.  Elizabeth, with her tear-worn eyes, was Dorothy’s sad self to-night, only the eyes did not seek his friendly.  They were gazing at pictures in the fire when he rejoined her, and though Bessie moved and raised her head in courteous recognition of his coming, there was something of avoidance in her manner, as if she shrank from his inspection.  Perhaps she did; she had no desire to parade her distresses or to reproach him with them.  She meant to be good—­only give her time.  But she must have time.