"If you don't mind, madam," said the lord of all this magnificence, "I
should like to stop here, I am getting tired of walking." And there he
stopped for many years. The rest of the Castle was shut up; he scarcely
ever visited it except occasionally to see that the rooms were properly
aired, for he was a methodical man.
As for Beatrice, she went home, still chuckling, to receive a severe
reproof from Elizabeth for her "forwardness." But Owen Davies never
forgot the debt of gratitude he owed her. In his heart he felt convinced
that had it not been for her, he would have fled before Mrs. Thomas and
her horn-rimmed eyeglasses, to return no more. The truth of the matter
was, however, that young as was Beatrice, he fell in love with her then
and there, only to fall deeper and deeper into that drear abyss as years
went on. He never said anything about it, he scarcely even gave a hint
of his hopeless condition, though of course Beatrice divined something
of it as soon as she came to years of discretion. But there grew up in
Owen's silent, lonely breast a great and overmastering desire to make
this grey-eyed girl his wife.
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