"
"I daresay it may seem so to you. You would think better of me if I could
play the stoic, and say, 'She has jilted me, and is dead to me
henceforward.' But I cannot do that. I have the memory of her peaceful
girlhood--the happy days in which I knew her first--the generous
protector who sheltered her life. I am pledged to the dead, Sir David."
He left Heatherly soon after this, though the Baronet pressed him to stay
to dinner.
CHAPTER XXIV.
TORMENTED BY DOUBT.
The long homeward walk gave Gilbert ample leisure for reflection upon his
interview with Sir David; a very unsatisfactory interview at the best.
Yes, the conviction that the man who had wronged him was no other than
his own familiar friend, had flashed upon him with a new force as the
Baronet answered his questions about John Holbrook. The suspicion which
had entered his mind after he left the lonely farm-house near Crosber,
and which he had done his uttermost to banish, as if it had been a
suggestion of the evil one, came back to him to-day with a form and
reality which it had lacked before. It seemed no longer a vague fancy, a
dark unwelcome thought that bordered on folly. It had taken a new shape
altogether, and appeared to him almost a certainty.
Sir David's refusal to make any direct denial of the fact seemed to
confirm his suspicion.
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