'Your mother's and your grandmother's young man,' he repeated.
'And were you my great-grandmother's too?' she asked, with an expectant interest in his case as a drama that overcame her personal considerations for a moment.
'No--not your great-grandmother's. Your imagination beats even my confessions!... But I am VERY old, as you see.'
'I did not know it!' said she in an appalled murmur. 'You do not look so; and I thought that what you looked you were.'
'And you--you are very young,' he continued.
A stillness followed, during which she sat in a troubled constraint, regarding him now and then with something in her open eyes and large pupils that might have been sympathy or nervousness. Pierston ate scarce any breakfast, and rising abruptly from the table said he would take a walk on the cliffs as the morning was fine.
He did so, proceeding along the north-east heights for nearly a mile. He had virtually given Avice up, but not formally. His intention had been to go back to the house in half-an-hour and pay a morning visit to the invalid; but by not returning the plans of the previous evening might be allowed to lapse silently, as mere pourparlers that had come to nothing in the face of Avice's want of love for him. Pierston accordingly went straight along, and in the course of an hour was at his Budmouth lodgings.
Nothing occurred till the evening to inform him how his absence had been taken. Then a note arrived from Mrs. Pierston; it was written in pencil, evidently as she lay.
'I am alarmed,' she said, 'at your going so suddenly. Avice seems to think she has offended you. She did not mean to do that, I am sure. It makes me dreadfully anxious! Will you send a line? Surely you will not desert us now--my heart is so set on my child's welfare!'
'Desert you I won't,' said Jocelyn. 'It is too much like the original case. But I must let her desert me!'
On his return, with no other object than that of wishing Mrs. Pierston good-bye, he found her painfully agitated. She clasped his hand and wetted it with her tears.
'O don't be offended with her!' she cried. 'She's young. We are one people--don't marry a kimberlin! It will break my heart if you forsake her now! Avice!'
The girl came. 'My manner was hasty and thoughtless this morning,' she said in a low voice. 'Please pardon me. I wish to abide by my promise.'
Her mother, still tearful, again joined their hands; and the engagement stood as before.