The living of
Hillside would be resigned in favour of Martyn in the spring, and
meantime he would gain more experience at Beachharbour, and this
would break the separation to the Fordyces.
After all, however, theirs was not to be our first wedding. I have
said little of Emily. The fact was, that after that week of
Clarence's danger, we said she lived in a kind of dream. She
fulfilled all that was wanted of her, nursing Clarence, waiting on
me, ordering dinner, making the tea, and so forth; but it was quite
evident that life began for her on the Saturdays, when Lawrence came
down, and ended on the Mondays, when he went away. If, in the
meantime, she sat down to work, she went off into a trance; if she
was sent out for fresh air, she walked quarter-deck on the
esplanade, neither seeing nor hearing anything, we averred, but some
imaginary Lawrence Frith.
If she had any drawback, good girl, it was the idea of deserting me;
but then, as I could honestly tell her, nobody need fear for my
happiness, since Clarence was given back to me. And she believed,
and was ready to go to China with her Lawrence.
CHAPTER XLVIII--THE LAST DISCOVERY
'Grief will be joy if on its edge
Fall soft that holiest ray,
Joy will be grief, if no faint pledge
Be there of heavenly day.'
KEBLE.
We did not move from Beachharbour till September, and by that time
it had been decided that Chantry House itself should be given up to
the new scheme.
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