"Hush! hush! I hear his step on the terrace."
The girl darted off like a swallow. For the whole universe she could not have met Hepworth there in the presence of a third person.
As she left the room, Closs entered it.
"Rachael," he said, standing before his sister, in the square of moonlight cast like a block of silver through the window, "I have been weak enough to love this girl whom we both knew as an infant, when I was old enough to be a worse man than I shall ever be again; and, still more reprehensible, I have told her of it within the last half-hour; a pleasant piece of business, which Lord Hope will be likely to relish. Don't you think so?"
"I do not know—I cannot tell. Hope loves his daughter, and has never yet denied anything to her. He may not like it at first; but—oh! Hepworth, I know almost as little of my husband's feelings or ideas as you can."
"But you will not think that I have done wrong?"
"What, in loving Clara? What man on earth could help it?"
"Well, I do love her, and I think she loves me."
"I know she does."
"Thank you, sister; but she is such a child."