"My dear fellow," exclaimed Allan, "what is the matter with you? Your hand is as cold as ice."
Midwinter smiled faintly. "I am always in extremes," he said; "my hand was as hot as fire the first time you took it at the old west-country inn. Come to that difficulty which you have not come to yet. You are young, rich, your own master--and she loves you. What difficulty can there be?"
Allan hesitated. "I hardly know how to put it," he replied. "As you said just now, I love her, and she loves me; and yet there is a sort of strangeness between us. One talks a good deal about one's self when one is in love, at least I do. I've told her all about myself and my mother, and how I came in for this place, and the rest of it. Well--though it doesn't strike me when we are together--it comes across me now and then, when I'm away from her, that she doesn't say much on her side. In fact, I know no more about her than you do."
"Do you mean that you know nothing about Miss Gwilt's family and friends?"
"That's it, exactly."
"Have you never asked her about them?"
"I said something of the sort the other day," returned Allan: "and I'm afraid, as usual, I said it in the wrong way. She looked--I can't quite tell you how; not exactly displeased, but--oh, what things words are! I'd give the world, Midwinter, if I could only find the right word when I want it as well as you do."
"Did Miss Gwilt say anything to you in the way of a reply?"
"That's just what I was coming to. She said, 'I shall have a melancholy story to tell you one of these days, Mr. Armadale, about myself and my family; but you look so happy, and the circumstances are so distressing, that I have hardly the heart to speak of it now.' Ah, she can express herself--with the tears in her eyes, my dear fellow, with the tears in her eyes! Of course, I changed the subject directly. And now the difficulty is how to get back to it, delicately, without making her cry again. We must get back to it, you know. Not on my account; I am quite content to marry her first and hear of her family misfortunes, poor thing, afterward. But I know Mr. Brock. If I can't satisfy him about her family when I write to tell him of this (which, of course, I must do), he will be dead against the whole thing. I'm my own master, of course, and I can do as I like about it. But dear old Brock was such a good friend to my poor mother, and he has been such a good friend to me--you see what I mean, don't you?"