Volume I Part 12 (1/2)

”Hus.h.!.+” she cried in alarm, looking round; ”I heard a footstep.” Her voice trembled with many emotions.

”There's no one here,” he answered, scarcely glancing round. ”It was perhaps my heart you heard beat; there are footfalls in that--those of remorse for my weakness--those of my mother's spirit deserting me; for I have sworn _only_ to think of her. And yet, Minnie, do you know, amidst all this wild pa.s.sion to-day, which your word, your utterance of my name, has called forth, I am not _sure_ I truly love you! Were I certain of that, nothing could ever reconcile me to a separation from you. I would strain every nerve of my soul to make you love me; and, loving thus, ask you to be mine--in toil and poverty perhaps--a.s.sured that _nothing_ could surpa.s.s in misery, separation from each other.”

”Is your heart more difficult for you to read, than mine is for myself?”

she asked, looking up in child-like confidence. ”Mine is an open page, I _know_----”

”Do not speak what you _think_ you read there, Minnie; hearts are deceitful things, like words in dead tongues: we must search well, to define the real signification of things written there. Love has a counterfeit--pa.s.sion. If I knew mine, purely, truly yours, worthy of you--or if I knew you truly loved me--there is not that power on earth which should part us!”

”Surely,” she whispered, in terror grasping his arm, ”there is some one in that archway, yonder--I heard a step!”

”No, 'tis fancy,” he replied, looking round; ”my earnestness has startled you, poor child--poor child, indeed, if you loved me!--an outcast, a wanderer. Forget all we have been saying, Minnie,” he added, sorrowfully; ”for be sure of this, if we _really_ love, or are to love, some great event will call that affection to light--prove and hallow it; for it will be based on esteem, else you had not trusted me so far, nor I, been so confident towards you. Come, let us leave this old ruin; you are terrified to-day. I will see you outside of its huge walls, and then we must part; once on your black mare, with old Thomas beside you, you will forget this. Let us go, child; why, you tremble still!” and, more with fatherly care than aught else, he drew her arm beneath his own, and they silently quitted the ruin.

”Now, will you doubt my perspicacity again, Formby?” cried Marmaduke Burton, stepping from beneath the dark archway, and dragging the half alive Juvenal after him. ”I told you they met in secret. I wish we could have heard all they said.”

”I'm horror-stricken!” s.h.i.+vered Juvenal, with genuine truthfulness.

”What is to be done with her?”

”Lock her up! we'll soon hunt him out of this neighbourhood. Come out through this side-pa.s.sage, my buggy's there; they must not know we heard them yet!”

CHAPTER XII.

Minnie returned home at a quick gallop. She felt as if pursued by some visionary being. Not once did she pause or look back, after the one gentle wave of her hand to Miles, who stood statue-like, watching her, beside the old ruin, as she pa.s.sed. Even poor, old Thomas could not extract a word from her, she flew so quickly homewards. On alighting from ”Jet,” she hastened to her own room, and, throwing off the hat which bound her brows, sat down to think, and thus she sat some silent moments; then rising gently, as though she had held communing with some spirit, she crept quietly about, as she changed her riding-suit for her ordinary one. When this was accomplished, she opened her door, and stealing down the pa.s.sage, rapped at her aunt Dorcas's room. ”Come in,”

answered the quiet voice which ever fell soothingly on her ear, and Minnie was in an instant beside her. A few desultory remarks pa.s.sed about her ride, where she had been, etc.; to these Minnie replied with evident constraint. Dorcas at last noticed her manner, and, looking up from a purse she was knitting, exclaimed, ”My child, are you not well?

Why do you seem so much oppressed?”

This was all the young heart required to unburthen itself. She flung her arms round her aunt's neck, and burst into tears. ”Dear, dear aunt!” she sobbed; ”forgive me--forgive Minnie--for deceiving you, though not for long, dear aunt.”

”My child, what do you mean? Good heavens! what has occurred?” and she folded her arms around her.

”Aunt, I have wickedly deceived you,” sobbed the girl still; ”I--I----.”

She was unable to continue for her tears.

”Tell me, Minnie, my own dear child; I forgive you before knowing,”

exclaimed the gentle woman. ”I am sure you exaggerate some slight fault; be calm, tell me all: what do you mean?”

For some moments Minnie could not summon courage to reply; then at last, by a supreme effort, she confessed her many accidental meetings with Miles Tremenhere at first, and this one by appointment.

”Dear Aunty,” she whispered, ”I know now how very wrong it has been; but I feared telling you, lest you should betray me to the others. And though I know you will be just, they would not perhaps, but by coercion, endeavour to force me to their wills; they have spoken of such things, and I couldn't bear that!”

Dorcas was pained beyond measure. Her surprise left her speechless; for the suspicions instilled into Juvenal's mind by Burton, were strangers to her. Sylvia, we have seen, was on a wrong road altogether; thus, she had been kept in complete ignorance. She durst scarcely question her niece: she feared lest some new sorrow might come to light--some positive engagement. In her alarm, she dreaded almost to hear that they were married. Minnie mistook her silence, and, clasping her again in her arms, besought her not to betray her. ”I was so wretched in deceiving you,” she cried; ”but do not let my uncle, or aunt Sylvia, know; and oh, not Dora!” And she shuddered with a blind terror, not seeing the phantom of her fear: ”They will lock me up, and be unkind, and harsh--I know they will; and then I will answer for nothing I may do!”

”Minnie, Minnie--my child--my own child, do not say such things--there,”

and she fondly kissed her; ”be calm; you have done wrong, but no one shall know it, so you promise me never to meet him again without my knowledge.”

”I promise all, aunt--my mother; for indeed you have been one to the motherless child. I never will conceal any thing again from you; and you won't tell Dora?”

”No one, Minnie; but why especially not Dora?”