said the innkeeper. “I fear me your suit proved a cold one.”
“She yielded me her esteem,” said Tressilian, “and seemed not unwilling that I should hope it might ripen into a warmer passion. There was a contract of future marriage executed betwixt us, upon her father’s intercession; but to comply with her anxious request, the execution was deferred for a twelvemonth. During this period, Richard Varney appeared in the country, and, availing himself of some distant family connexion with Sir Hugh Robsart, spent much of his time in his company, until, at length, he almost lived in the family.”
“That could bode no good to the place he honoured with his residence,” said Gosling.
“No, by the rood!” replied Tressilian. “Misunderstanding and misery followed his presence, yet so strangely, that I am at this moment at a loss to trace the gradations of their encroachment upon a family, which had, till then, been so happy. For a time Amy Robsart received the attentions of this man Varney with the indifference attached to common courtesies; then followed a period in which she seemed to regard him with dislike, and even with disgust; and then an extraordinary species of connexion appeared to grow up betwixt them. Varney dropped those airs of pretension and gallantry which had marked his former approaches; and Amy, on the other hand, seemed to renounce the ill-disguised disgust with which she had regarded them. They seemed to have more of privacy and confidence together, than I fully liked; and I suspected
