“Thank you a thousand times! you have given me all the help I want. I’ll be here before eleven, waiting for you to come out.”
“Oh, please don’t, Sir—I wish I hadn’t told you—I oughtn’t, indeed I oughtn’t!”
“No fear—you shall not lose by what you have told me—I promise all I said I would promise—goodbye. And mind, not a word to Miss Margaret till I see her!”
As I hurried away, I heard the girl run a few paces after me—then stop—then return, and close the garden gate, softly. She had evidently put herself once more in Miss Margaret’s place; and had given up all idea of further resistance as she did so.
How should I occupy the hours until eleven o’clock? Deceit whispered:—Go home; avoid even the chance of exciting suspicion, by breakfasting with your family as usual. And as deceit counselled, so I acted.
I never remember Clara more kind, more ready with all those trifling little cares and attentions which have so exquisite a grace, when offered by a woman to a man, and especially by a sister to a brother, as when she and I and my father assembled together at the breakfast-table. I now recollect with shame how little I thought about her, or spoke to her on that morning; with how little hesitation or self-reproach I excused myself from accepting an engagement which she wished to make with me for that day. My father was absorbed in some matter of business; to him she could not speak. It was to me that she addressed all her wonted questions and remarks of the morning. I hardly listened to them; I answered them carelessly and briefly. The moment breakfast was over, without a word of explanation I hastily left the house again.
As I descended the steps, I glanced by accident at the dining-room window. Clara was looking after me from it. There was the same anxious