When Bessie retired into the octagon parlor her grandfather stayed
behind. He had been to see Mr. John Short that day, and had heard that a
new aspect had come over the electioneering sky. The Radicals had
received an impetus from some quarter unknown, and were preparing to
make such a hard fight for the representation of Norminster that the
triumph of the Tory party was seriously threatened. This news had vexed
him, but it was not of that he meditated chiefly when he was left alone.
It was of Bessie. He had founded certain pleasurable expectations upon
her, and he felt that these expectations were losing their bloom. He
could not fail to recollect her quietness of last night, when he noticed
the languor of her eyes, the dejection of her mouth, and the effort it
was to her to speak. The question concerning her parents had aroused the
slumbering ache of old remembrance, and had stung him anew with a sense
of her condemnation. A feeling akin to remorse visited him as he sat
considering, and by degrees realizing, what he had done to her, and was
doing; but he had his motive, he had his object in it, and the motive
had seemed to justify the means until he came to see her face to face.
Contact with her warm, distinct humanity began immediately to work a
change in his mind. Absent, he had decided that he could dispose of her
as he would. Present, he recognized that she would have a voice, and
probably a casting voice, in the disposal of herself. He might sever her
from her friends in the Forest, but he would not thereby attach her to
friends and kinsfolk in the north. His last wanton act of selfish
unkindness, in refusing to let her see her old home in passing, was
evidently producing its effect in silent grieving, in resentment and
revolt.

All his life long Mr. Fairfax had coveted affection, and had missed the
way to win it. No one had ever really loved him except his sister