Sink or Swim? , Volume II by Matilda Charlotte Houstoun

Ten days -- long and anxious ones -- have elapsed since Honor's instalment / by her father's bed (for, as may already have been surmised, old Mrs. / Beacham and later John himself had been constrained, much against their / respective wills, to return to the Paddocks without her), and Colonel / Norcott, pronounced out of danger by Dr. Kempshall, has already / partially recovered his normal tone of mind. By that time the mystery of / Honor's birth had ceased to exist, and all the little world of / Gawthorpe, including the equally important and more extended one of / Switcham and the surrounding farms, knew her for what she was -- namely, / the illegitimate daughter of Colonel Frederick Norcott, formerly of West / Lowe Court, Sandyshire. Very little -- _nothing_, it may almost be / said -- was ever addressed to John Beacham on the subject of his wife's / parentage. Of comparatively humble birth though they were, an / instinctive delicacy warned the major part of his friends, that to John / any allusion to the subject would be distasteful at least, if not / positively offensive. The undefined suspicion also -- strengthened by the / fact that, during all the days spent in attendance on her father, John / never was known to enter even for a single moment Colonel Norcott's sick / room -- that he, John Beacham, was no stranger to the accident from which / the gallant Fred was suffering, did not tend to render the shrewd / Sandyshire yeomen particularly desirous of probing any hidden mental / wounds which he might be desirous of concealing.

But in addition to all these causes for silence, there was a change -- a / trifling one, perhaps, and an alteration more to be felt than / explained -- in John himself. That he should have been preoccupied and / taciturn whilst his wife's father was lying between life and death was / easily to be understood; but the dread of a fatal result was over now, / and yet John's brow was moody, and his laugh was heard far less / frequently, was likewise far less hearty than of yore. The truth was / that John Beacham, loving his wife with an entire and all-absorbing / devotion, was repining, not only at her absence, but at the changes / which, with the clear-sightedness of jealous affection, he foresaw / would take place in his relations with Honor. Other feelings too, / connected with his recent act, were perplexing, and rendering him / ashamed. In proportion as his deadly fear of being a self-condemned / murderer diminished, so did his softened feelings towards his late / antagonist subside likewise. With the conviction that Colonel Norcott / was no longer a sufferer from that burst of passion at first so truly / repented of, there returned with redoubled force John's antipathy to the / man whom he rightly believed to be dead to every feeling of honour, / every elevating sentiment of justice or of pity. From the moment when / Colonel Norcott was pronounced out of danger, he had endeavoured, / without exactly expressing his desire in words, to make Honor understand / his wish that she should return to the Paddocks.