l of
everything but her I had just left--regretting nothing but her
impenetrability, and my own precipitancy and want of tact--fearing
nothing but her hateful resolution, and my inability to overcome
it--hoping nothing--but halt,--I will not bore you with my conflicting
hopes and fears--my serious cogitations and resolves.

CHAPTER IX

Though my affections might now be said to be fairly weaned from Eliza
Millward, I did not yet entirely relinquish my visits to the vicarage,
because I wanted, as it were, to let her down easy; without raising much
sorrow, or incurring much resentment,--or making myself the talk of the
parish; and besides, if I had wholly kept away, the vicar, who looked
upon my visits as paid chiefly, if not entirely, to himself, would have
felt himself decidedly affronted by the neglect. But when I called there
the day after my interview with Mrs. Graham, he happened to be from
home--a circumstance by no means so agreeable to me now as it had been on
former occasions. Miss Millward was there, it is true, but she, of
course, would be little better than a nonentity. However, I resolved to
make my visit a short one, and to talk to Eliza in a brotherly, friendly
sort of way, such as our long acquaintance might warrant me in assuming,
and which, I thought, could neither give offence nor serve to encourage
false hopes.

It was never my custom to talk about Mrs. Graham either to her or any one
else; but I had not been seated three minutes before she brought that
lady on to the carpet herself in a rather remarkable manner.

'Oh, Mr. Markham!' said she, with a shocked expression and voice subdued
almost to a whisper, 'what do you think of these shocking reports about
Mrs. Graham?--can you encourage us to disbelieve them?'

'What reports?'

'Ah, now! you know!' she slily smiled and shook her head.

'I know nothing about them. What in the world do you mean, Eliza?'

'Oh, don't ask me! _I_ can't explain it.' She took up the cambric
handkerchief which she had been beautifying with a deep lace border, and
began to be very busy.

'What is it, Miss Millward? what does she mean?' said I, appealing to her
sister, who seemed to be absorbed in the hemming of a large, coarse
sheet.

'I don't know,' replied she. 'Some idle slander somebody has been
inventing, I suppose. I never heard it till Eliza told me the other
day,--but if all the parish dinned it in my ears, I shouldn't believe a
word of it-