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Manston once more repeated his offer; and once more she refused, but this time weakly, and with signs of an internal struggle. Manston's eye sparkled; he saw for the hundredth time in his life, that perseverance, if only systematic, was irresistible by womankind.
She stood beside him whilst her luggage was taken from the van. The luggage, consisting of the clamped deal box and another covered with canvas, was placed in the cloak-room. She seemed at a loss at finding nobody there to meet her. She asked him for some person to accompany her, and carry her bag to Mr. Manston's house, Knapwater Park. He was just off duty at that time, and offered to go himself.
Two men now placed themselves under the lamp immediately beside the gangway. Another stayed by the office door, and one or two more up Mary Street the straight cut to the quay. At a quarter to eleven the mail-bags were put on board. Whilst the attention of the idlers was directed to the mails, down Mary Street came a man as boldly as possible. The gait was Manston's, but not the clothes.
'Yes. 'Somebody ha' come to Carriford: and the rest of it may concern you, sir. 'Well, well. 'Did you expect Mrs. Manston to-night, sir? 'Yes, unfortunately she's come, I know, and asleep long before this time, I suppose. The labourer leant his elbow upon the shaft of the gig and turned his face, pale and sweating from his late work at the fire, up to Manston's.
'Nothing that's of the slightest use, after all, he said to her; 'we are as far as ever from the merest shadow of legal proof that would convict him of what I am morally certain he did, marry you, suspecting, if not knowing, her to be alive all the time. 'What has Edward sent? said Cytherea. 'An old amatory verse in Manston's writing.
Of the remainder of the colloquy one fact alone was plain to Anne, and that only inductively that Miss Aldclyffe, from what he had revealed to her, was going to scheme body and soul on Manston's behalf. Miss Aldclyffe seemed now to have no further reason for remaining, yet she lingered awhile as if loth to leave him.
But she considered; in the first place she was a homeless dependent; and what did practical wisdom tell her to do under such desperate circumstances? To provide herself with some place of refuge from poverty, and with means to aid her brother Owen. This was to be Mr. Manston's wife. She did not love him. But what was love without a home? Misery. What was a home without love?
But the removal of the uneasiness in this direction by Mrs. Manston's arrival, and her own consequent freedom had been the imposition of pain in another. Utterly fictitious details of the finding of Cytherea and Manston had been invented and circulated, unavoidably reaching her ears in the course of time.
That's the whole story of her, madam. Whatever were Manston's real feelings towards the lady who had received his explanation in these supercilious tones, they remained locked within him as within a casket of steel. 'Did your friends know of your marriage, Mr. Manston? she continued. 'Nobody at all; we kept it a secret for various reasons.
Manston's existence had been dispersed by her return, a phenomenon that altered the cloudy relationship in which Cytherea had lately been standing towards her old lover, to one of distinctness; which result would have been delightful but for circumstances about to be mentioned. Cytherea was still pale from her recent illness, and still greatly dejected. Until the news of Mrs.
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