How it all Came Round by L.T. Meade

Hinton had left the Harmans' house, after his strange interview with Charlotte, with a stunned feeling. It is not too much to say of this young man that he utterly failed to realize what had befallen him. He walked like one in a dream, and when he reached his lodgings in Jermyn Street, and sat down at last by his hearth, he thought of himself in a queer way, as if he were some one else; a trouble had come to some one else; that some one was a friend of his so he was called on to pity him. Gradually, however, it dawned upon him that the friend was unpleasantly close, that the some one else reigned as lord of his bosom. It was he -- he himself he was called on to pity. It was on his hitherto so prosperous, young head that the storm had burst. Next Tuesday was to have been his wedding-day. There was to be no wedding. On next Tuesday he was to have won a bride, a wife; that other one dearer than himself was to give herself to him absolutely. In addition to this he was to obtain fortune: and fortune was to lead to far dearer, far nobler fame. But now all this was at an end; Tuesday was to pass as any other day -- gray, neutral-tinted, indifferent, it was to go over his head. And why? This was what caused the sharpest sting of the anguish. There seemed no reason for it all. Charlotte's excuse was a poor one; it had not the ring of the true metal about it. Unaccustomed to deceive, she had played her part badly. She had given an excuse; but it was no excuse. In this Hinton was not blinded, even for a moment. His Charlotte! There, seemed a flaw in the perfect creature. His Charlotte had a second time turned away her confidence from him. Yes, here was the sting; in her trouble she would not let him comfort her. What was the matter? What was the mystery? What was the hidden wrong?

Hinton roused himself now. As thought and clearness of judgment came more vividly back to him, his anger grew and his pity lessened. His mind was brought to bear upon a secret, for there _was_ a hidden secret. His remembrance travelled back to all that had happened since the day their marriage was fixed -- since the day when he first saw a troubled look on Charlotte's face -- and she had told him, though unwillingly, that queer story of Mrs. Home's. Yes, of course, he knew there was a mystery -- a strange and dark mystery; like a coward he had turned away from investigating it. He had seen Uncle Jasper's nervous fear; he had seen Mrs. Home's poverty; he had witnessed Mr. Harman's ill-concealed disquietude -- all this he had seen, all this he had known. But for Charlotte's sake, he had shut his eyes; Charlotte's sake he had forbidden his brain to think or his hands to work. --