Page:Elizabeth's Pretenders.djvu/272

Rh well-nigh intolerable. But for her dear dead father's sake, the girl said the sacrifice should be made. Uncle William belonged to him, so to speak. He had done his best to replace her father, and if he were left desolate, it would be her duty to return to him: that was clear.

Other things, perhaps, were not so clear. In thinking of all she would lose by such a sacrifice, Elizabeth, notwithstanding her curiously direct and unflinching insight into cause and effect, failed to give due prominence to the figure which occupied so considerable a space in the foreground of her present life. She would have scorned the idea that the image of Alaric Baring had in the smallest degree influenced her decision to accompany his sister to Mentone. Nor was it so. She had conceived a strong affection for Hatty; and constituted as Elizabeth was, it was obvious that whithersoever her friend was sent, she, too, must go. What did friendship mean, if one deserted a friend in the hour of need? The poor fragile American would require a woman's care; and Elizabeth, not feeling herself called to England by duty, did not hesitate to throw over her studies in Paris, and accompany her. Nevertheless, the interest of the journey, the pleasure in the interchange of a few words, breaking, now and again, long spells of silence, these were due to the presence of one whose influence was daily gaining an ascendency, unperceived, over the girl.

He did not talk much. He generally sat, as now, in the further corner of the carriage, absorbed, or seemingly absorbed, in his book. But it was not in the nature of things that their intercourse should any longer be as restrained as it had been at Madame Martineau's. He still set a