“I haven’t been out of the house all day,” she said, “and that has made it worse.”

“I don’t know how you are to get out if you won’t walk,” he answered.

Then there was no more said between them till they sat down to their meal.

Had the squire at Allington known all, he might, I think, have been satisfied with the punishment which Crosbie had encountered.

CHAPTER XLIX

Preparations for Going

“Mamma, read that letter.”

It was Mrs Dale’s eldest daughter who spoke to her, and they were alone together in the parlour at the Small House.  Mrs Dale took the letter and read it very carefully.  She then put it back into its envelope and returned it to Bell.

“It is, at any rate, a good letter, and, as I believe, tells the truth.”

“I think it tells a little more than the truth, mamma.  As you say, it is a well-written letter.  He always writes well when he is in earnest.  But yet—­”

“Yet what, my dear?”

“There is more head than heart in it.”

“If so, he will suffer the less; that is, if you are quite resolved in the matter.”

“I am quite resolved, and I do not think he will suffer much.  He would not, I suppose, have taken the trouble to write like that, if he did not wish this thing.”

“I am quite sure that he does wish it, most earnestly; and that he will be greatly disappointed.”

“As he would be if any other scheme did not turn out to his satisfaction; that is all.”

The letter, of course, was from Bell’s cousin Bernard, and containing the strongest plea he was able to make in favour of his suit for her hand.  Bernard Dale was better able to press such a plea by letter than by spoken words.  He was a man capable of doing anything well in the doing of which a little time for consideration might be given to him; but he had not in him that power of passion which will force a man to eloquence in asking for that which he desires to obtain.  His letter on this occasion was long, and well argued.  If there was little in it of passionate love, there was much of pleasant flattery.  He told Bell how advantageous to both their families their marriage would be; he declared to her that his own feeling in the matter had been rendered stronger by absence; he alluded without boasting to his past career of life as her best guarantee for his future conduct; he explained to her that if this marriage could be arranged there need then, at any rate, be no further question as to his aunt removing with Lily from the Small House; and then he told her that his affection for herself was the absorbing passion of his existence.  Had the letter been written with the view of obtaining from a third person a favourable verdict as to his suit, it would have been a very good letter indeed; but there was not a word in it that could stir the heart of such a girl as Bell Dale.