Shirley

than I could close that door against her presence. Explain why she distressed me so.«
    »She could not bear to be quite outcast; and then she would sometimes get a notion into her head, on a cold, wet day, that the school-room was no cheerful place, and feel it incumbent on her to go and see if you and Henry kept up a good fire; and once there, she liked to stay.«
    »But she should not be changeful: if she came at all, she should come oftener.«
    »There is such a thing as intrusion.«
    »To-morrow, you will not be as you are to-day.«
    »I don't know. Will you?«
    »I am not mad, most noble Berenice! We may give one day to dreaming, but the next we must awake; and I shall awake to purpose the morning you are married to Sir Philip Nunnely. The fire shines on you and me, and shows us very clearly in the glass, Miss Keeldar; and I have been gazing on the picture all the time I have been talking. Look up! What a difference between your head and mine! – I look old for thirty!«
    »You are so grave; you have such a square brow; and your face is sallow. I never regard you as a young man, nor as Robert's junior.«
    »Don't you? I thought not. Imagine Robert's clear-cut, handsome face looking over my shoulder. Does not the apparition make vividly manifest the obtuse mould of my heavy traits? There!« (he started) »I have been expecting that wire to vibrate this last half-hour.«
    The dinner-bell rang, and Shirley rose.
    »Mr. Moore,« she said, as she gathered up her silks, »have you heard from your brother lately? Do you know what he means by staying in town so long? Does he talk of returning?«
    »He talks of returning; but what has caused his long absence I cannot tell. To speak the truth, I thought none in Yorkshire knew better than yourself why he was reluctant to come home.«
    A crimson shadow passed across Miss Keeldar's cheek.
    »Write to him, and urge him to come,« she said. »I know there has been no impolicy in protracting his absence thus far: it is good to let the mill stand, while trade is so bad; but he must not abandon the county.«
    »I am aware,« said Louis, »that he had an interview with you the evening before he left, and I saw him quit Fieldhead afterwards. I read his countenance, or
tried
to read it. He turned from me. I divined that he would be long away. Some fine slight fingers have a wondrous knack at pulverizing a man's brittle pride. I suppose Robert put too much trust in his manly beauty and native gentlemanhood. Those are better off who, being destitute of advantage, cannot cherish delusion. But I will write, and say you advise his return.«
    »Do not say
I
advise his return, but that his return is advisable.«
    The second bell rang, and Miss Keeldar obeyed its call.
     
     
Chapter XXIX
Louis Moore
    Louis Moore was used to a quiet life: being a quiet man, he endured it better than most men would: having a large world of his own in his own head and heart, he tolerated confinement to a small, still corner of the real world very patiently.
    How hushed is Fieldhead this evening! All but Moore – Miss Keeldar, the whole family of the Sympsons, even Henry – are gone to Nunnely. Sir Philip would have them come: he wished to make them acquainted with his mother and sisters, who are now at the Priory. Kind gentleman as the Baronet is, he asked the Tutor too; but the Tutor would much sooner have made an appointment with the ghost of the Earl of Huntingdon to meet him, and a shadowy ring of his merry men, under the canopy of the thickest, blackest, oldest oak in Nunnely Forest. Yes, he would rather have appointed tryst with a phantom abbess, or mist-pale nun, among the wet and weedy relics of that ruined sanctuary of theirs, mouldering in the core of the wood. Louis Moore longs to have something near him to-night: but not the boy-baronet, nor his benevolent but stern mother, nor his patrician sisters, nor one soul of the Sympsons.
    This night is not calm: the equinox still struggles in its storms. The wild rains of the day are abated: the great single cloud disparts and rolls away from heaven, not passing and leaving a sea all sapphire, but tossed buoyant before a continued, long-sounding, high-rushing moonlight tempest. The Moon reigns glorious, glad of the gale; as glad as if she gave herself to his fierce caress with love. No Endymion will watch for his goddess to-night: there are no flocks out on the mountains; and it is well, for to-night she welcomes Æolus.
    Moore – sitting in the