Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/686

662 So said the Clithero world; and the Clithero world was wrong. Whatever were Steven Lawrence's intentions for the future, it soon became evident that, for the present, he would hold on to Ashcot. On the very Sunday when Dora was brought back to Clithero, he made his appearance at Shiloh for the evening service, looking ten years older, the village girls said to each other, but with head erect; dressed, not as his wife had always made him dress, but in his old yeoman fashion, and with self-possessed demeanor too unobtrusive, too quiet, to be aught but genuine—the demeanor of a man not so much seeking to brave off, as to disallow, the suspicion of personal disgrace. Next morning at day-break he was up and out with his men. "My wife is dead to me," he said, briefly, to Barbara, as he left the house (the story had been told her yesterday). "You will see that everything belonging to her is sent back to the Dene, and from this moment forth we will mention her name no more. You and I will be alone for the future." Then he went away to the fields; put his hand to the plough, the harrow—to whatever work was being done on the farm that morning—returned at noon, dined as he used to do in the kitchen, worked again till dusk. After this—the kitchen fireside and his pipe—Barbara, death-silent, with her sewing opposite, till bed-time!

And this day, varied, as far as work went, by the changing seasons—and only so varied—was the pattern following which the succeeding year went by; for Dora's death made absolutely no change in his condition. He never put on mourning for her, thereby showing disrespect, it must be allowed, toward the family at the Dene, but the principles of a Christian man, said the elders of Shiloh! (No sickly apologists for human frailty! Men who, speaking on such subjects, would quote you the good old written law of stoning unto death without the camp, rather than any later instance of that law's infringement! Dora Lawrence had sinned; in sinning, had ceased to be Steven's wife as much as if all the judges in England had divorced them. Should the husband she had sinned against mock the Lord's house by wearing mourning in it for a castaway?) He refused firmly, quietly, to accept any remaining portion of her marriage dower, when offer of its payment was made him by Mr. Hilliard's solicitor. The money had never been his; he had no right to receive it; and he took this opportunity of saying, with his duty to the Squire, that he hoped by Christmas to pay back all that had been advanced him for the improvement of his land. When he went beyond the farm, which was seldom, and chanced to meet Mr. Hilliard, he would salute him just with the simple respect of his boyish days; but with no more than—"How are you, Lawrence? how goes the farm?" and—"Well, I thank you, sir," passing on either side. Twice, twice only, he met Katharine Fane; and each time they bowed; then, with quick-averted eyes, like people who shrank guiltily from each other's presence, went on their way—the past, and all the love it held, as rigidly dead as though a dozen winters had frozen above its grave! He was friendly still, on matters of horse dealing, with Lord Haverstock; but no more. (Despite her horror of the "gentry's ways," Barbara thought at times she would sooner see him drinking French wines or playing cards, like young Josh, than leading the death-in-life that he was leading now!) Other society he had none. Once, with pride smitten, with his heart desolate, he had been able to sink—by intervals, at least—to the level of Mills and his associates—had been able to seek forgetfulness in such sources as men of their stamp term pleasure. This was impossible to him now. The barest thought of dissipation, coarse or refined, filled him with loathing. Did not dissipation remind him of Paris?