Anthony Trollope: Barchester Towers

48. CHAPTER XLVIII: MISS THORNE SHOWS HER TALENT FOR MATCH-MAKING (continued)

But he did not look at her. Instead of doing so, he left the fire-place and began walking up and down the room. Eleanor took up her book resolutely; but she could not read, for there was a tear in her eye, and do what she would it fell on her cheek. When Mr Arabin's back was turned to her she wiped it away; but another was soon coming down her face in its place. They would come; not a deluge of tears that would have betrayed her at once, but one by one, single monitors. Mr Arabin did not observe her closely, and they passed unseen.

Mr Arabin, thus passing up and down the room, took four of five turns before he spoke another word, and Eleanor sat equally silent with her face bent over her book. She was afraid that her tears would get the better of her, and was preparing for an escape from the room, when Mr Arabin in his walk stood opposite to her. He did not come close up, but stood exactly on the spot to which his course brought him, and then, with his hands under his coat tails, thus made a confession.

'Mrs Bold,' said he, 'I owe you retribution for a great offence of which I have been guilty towards you.' Eleanor's heart beat so that she could not trust herself to say that he had never been guilty of any offence. So Mr Arabin then went on.

'I have thought much of it since, and I am now aware that I was wholly unwarranted in putting to you a question which I once asked you. It was indelicate on my part, and perhaps unmanly. No intimacy which may exist between myself and your connection, Dr Grantly, could justify it. Nor could the acquaintance which existed between ourselves.' The word acquaintance struck cold on Eleanor's heart. Was this to her doom after all? 'I therefore think it right to beg your pardon in a humble spirit, and I now do so.'

What was Eleanor to say to this? She could not say much, because she was crying, and yet she must say something. She was most anxious to say that something graciously, kindly, and yet not in such a manner as to betray herself. She had never felt herself so much at a loss for words.