"Thank you," she said in a low voice, "I will come with you and stay
with you until--until--I can find something to do, something at which I
can earn my own living. Surely there must be something I can do?" She
turned to Mr. Wordley with a little anxious, eager gesture. "I am
strong--very strong; I have managed Herondale--I can ride, and--and
understand a farm. I am never tired. Surely there is something I can
do!"
Her voice broke, she began to tremble, and the tears started to her
eyes again.
"Yes, yes; no doubt, no doubt, my child!" said Mr. Wordley, whose own
eyes were moist. "We will think about all that later on. You must go
now and rest; you are tired."
He drew her arm within his, and patting her hand tenderly and
encouragingly, led her out of the room; and stood in the hall watching
her as she slowly went up the great stairs; such a girlish, mournful
figure in her plain black dress.
Ida lay awake that night listening to the wind and the rain. She was
familiar enough with the dale storms, but never had their wild music
wailed so mournful an accompaniment to her own thoughts. Compared with
her other losses, that of her home, dearly as she loved it, weighed but
little; it was but, an added pang to the anguish of her bereavement;
and behind that, the principal cause of her grief, loomed the desertion
of her lover. She tried not to think of Stafford; for every thought
bestowed on him seemed to rob her dead father and to be disloyal to his
memory; but, alas! the human heart is despotic; and as she lay awake
and listened to the wailing of the wind and the rain as it drove
against the window, Stafford's voice penetrated that of the storm; and,
scarcely consciously, her lips were forming some of the passionate
words of endearment which he had whispered to her by the stream and on
the hill-side. Though she knew every word by heart of the letter he had
written her, she did not yet understand or comprehend why he had broken
his solemn engagement to her. She understood that something had risen
between them, something had happened which had separated them, but she
could form no idea as to what it was. He had spoken of "unworthiness,"
of something which he had discovered that had rendered him unfit to be
her husband; but she could not guess what it was; but confused and
bewildered as she was, there was at present, at any rate, no resentment
in her heart.