CHAPTER X

When all were gone, I learnt that the vile slander had indeed been
circulated throughout the company, in the very presence of the victim.
Rose, however, vowed she did not and would not believe it, and my mother
made the same declaration, though not, I fear, with the same amount of
real, unwavering incredulity. It seemed to dwell continually on her
mind, and she kept irritating me from time to time by such expressions
as--'Dear, dear, who would have thought it!--Well! I always thought
there was something odd about her.--You see what it is for women to
affect to be different to other people.' And once it was,--'I misdoubted
that appearance of mystery from the very first--I thought there would no
good come of it; but this is a sad, sad business, to be sure!'

'Why, mother, you said you didn't believe these tales,' said Fergus.

'No more I do, my dear; but then, you know, there must be some
foundation.'

'The foundation is in the wickedness and falsehood of the world,' said I,
'and in the fact that Mr. Lawrence has been seen to go that way once or
twice of an evening--and the village gossips say he goes to pay his
addresses to the strange lady, and the scandal-mongers have greedily
seized the rumour, to make it the basis of their own infernal structure.'

'Well, but, Gilbert, there must be something in her manner to countenance
such reports.'

'Did you see anything in her manner?'

'No, certainly; but then, you know, I always said there was something
strange about her.'

I believe it was on that very evening that I ventured on another invasion
of Wildfell Hall. From the time of our party, which was upwards of a
week ago, I had been making daily efforts to meet its mistress in her
walks; and always disappointed (she must have managed it so on purpose),
had nightly kept revolving in my mind some pretext for another call. At
length I concluded that the separation could be endured no longer (by
this time, you will see, I was pretty far gone); and, taking from the
book-case an old volume that I thought she might be interested in,
though, from its unsightly and somewhat dilapidated condition, I had not
yet ventured to offer it for perusal, I hastened away,--but not without
sundry misgivings as to how she would receive me, or how I could summon
courage to present myself with so slight an excuse. But, perhaps, I
might see her in the field or the garden, and then there would be no
great difficult