"If not, what then, Miriam? Speak out!"
"If not, dear sister, _I_ will try to make up the _deficiency_," I said,
embracing her. "Now you understand my intentions."
I was learning to love my sister, and happy in the power to please her,
unconscious that an invisible barrier was rising from that hour, never
to be put aside.
CHAPTER IV.
For a discarded lover heartlessly played with, as she herself confessed
he had been, Claude Bainrothe bore himself very proudly and calmly in
Evelyn Erle's presence, I thought. At first, there was a shade of
coolness, of pique even in my own manner toward him as the memory of
Evelyn's insinuations rose between us; but after the lapse of a few
weeks all thought of this kind was put away, and he was received with a
pleasure as undisguised, as it was innocent and undesigning on my part.
The repugnant idea of succeeding to Evelyn in his affections had stifled
the very germs of coquetry, and my manner to him was unmistakable; nor
was it without evident dissatisfaction that Mr. Basil Bainrothe surveyed
the ruin of his hopes.
A sudden and painful change took place about midsummer in Claude's
manner toward me (with Evelyn it was uniform). He became cold,
restrained, embarrassed in his intercourse with me, hitherto so frank
and brotherly. He made his visits shorter and at last at greater
intervals; yet I knew, through others, that he remained strictly at
home, eschewing all places of amusement, all society--"all occupation
even," as Mr.
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