“You knew no one else,” I said, feeling as if, when Dora threw away that ring, the wild, passionate animal man had been exorcised; but all the answer I had was another groan, as from the burthened breast, as if he felt it almost an outrage to one whom he so reverenced to transfer to her the heart that had once beat for Meg Cree.  There was no more speech for a long time, during which I feared that I had merely made him unhappy by communicating my conjecture, but just as we were reaching our own grounds he said, “You will say nothing, Lucy?”

“No, indeed.”

“I thought it was all over, and for ever,” he said, pausing; “it ought to have been.  But the gates of a new world were opened to me when I saw her and you walking in the garden!  If it had only been five or six years sooner!”

He could not say any more, for Dora, who had been watching, here burst on us with cries of welcome, and it was long before there was any renewal of the conversation, so that I could not tell whether he really persuaded himself that he had no hopes, or was waiting to see how matters should turn out.

It was never easy to detect expressions of feeling or spirits on his massive face, and he could hardly be more silent than usual; but it was noticeable that he never fell asleep after his former wont when sitting still.  Indeed, he seldom was still, for he had a great deal of business both for the estate and the potteries on his hands, and stayed up late at night over them; and not only over them, for my room was next to his, and I heard the regular tramp, tramp of his feet, and the turn at the end of the room, as he walked up and down for at least an hour when the rest of the house were asleep, or the closing of the door when he returned from wandering on the moor at night.  And in the early morning, long before light, he always walked or rode over to Arked House, bestowed on Dermot’s hurts the cares which both had come to look on as essential, and stayed with him till the family were nearly ready to appear at their nine o’clock breakfast, not seeing Viola at all, unless any special cause led to a meeting later in the day, and then his eyes glowed, and he would do her devoted, unobserved service—­no, not unobserved by her, whom it made blush and sparkle—­and utter little words of thanks, not so gay as of old, but deeper, as if for a great honour and delight.  And then he would bow his head, colour, and draw into the background, where, with folded arms, he could watch her.

Once, when Dora, in her old way, claimed to be his wife, Harold told her with some impatience that she was growing too old for that nonsense.  The child looked at him with bent brows and questioning eyes for a moment, then turned and fled.  An hour later, after a long search, I found her crouched up in the corner of the kangaroo’s stall among the straw, having cried herself to sleep, with her head on the creature’s soft back.