And he had no sooner
admitted it now than he drove it out again. He was simply afraid of
it--in terror lest any suspicion of it should reach Elizabeth. Her
loyalty, her single-mindedness, her freedom from the smallest taint
of intrigue--he would have answered for them with all he possessed.
If, for a moment, she chose to think that he had misinterpreted her
kindness, her services in any vile and vulgar way, why, he might
lose her on the instant! Let him walk warily--do nothing at least to
destroy the friend in her, before he grasped at anything more.
Besides, how could she put up with him? 'I am the dried husk of a
man!' thought the Squire, with vehemence. 'I couldn't learn her ways
now, nor she mine. No; let us be as we are--only more so!'
But he was shaken through and through; first by that vanishing of
his boy into the furnace of the war, which had brought him at last
within the grip of the common grief, the common fear, and now by
this strange thought which had invaded him.
* * * * *
After dinner, Elizabeth, who was rather pale, but as cheerful and
self-possessed as usual, put Mrs.
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