Dudleigh spoke all this calmly and seriously, but beneath his words there was something in his tone which conveyed a deeper meaning. That tone was more than respectful--it was almost reverential--as though the one to whom he spoke required from him more than mere courtesy. In spite of his outward calm, there was also an emotion in his voice which showed that the calm was assumed, and that beneath it lay something which could not be all concealed. In his eyes, as he fixed them on Edith, there was that same reverential regard, which seemed to speak of devotion and loyalty; something stronger than admiration, something deeper than sympathy, was expressed from them. And yet it was this that he himself tried to conceal. It was as though this feeling of his burst forth irrepressibly through all concealment, as though the intensity of this feeling made even his calmest words and commonest formulas fall of a new and deeper meaning. In that reverence and profound devotion thus manifest there was nothing which could be otherwise than grateful to Edith. Certainly she could not take offense, for his words and his looks afforded nothing which could by any possibility give rise to that. For a whole month this man had been before her, a constant attendant on her father, sleeping his few hours in an adjoining chamber, with scarce a thought beyond that prostrate friend. All the country had been searched for the best advice or the best remedies, and nothing had been omitted which untiring affection could suggest. During all this time she had scarce seen him. In the delicacy of his regard for her he had studiously kept out of her way, as though unwilling to allow his presence to give her pain. A moment might occasionally be taken up with a few necessary arrangements as she would enter, but that was all. He patiently waited till she retired before he ventured to come in himself. No; in that noble face, pale from illness or from sadness, with the traces of sorrow upon it, and the marks of long vigils by the bedside of her father--in that refined face, whose expression spoke only of elevation of soul, and exhibited the perfect type of manly beauty, there was certainly nothing that could excite repugnance, but every thing that might inspire confidence. Edith saw all this, and remarked it while listening to him; and she thought she had never seen any thing so pure in its loyalty, so profound in its sympathy, and so sweet in its sad grace as that face which was now turned toward her with its eloquent eyes. She did not say much. A few words signified her assent to the proposal. Dudleigh said that he would make all the necessary arrangements, and that she should have no trouble whatever. With this he took his departure.