To my chagrin, my plea went unheeded: she was too absorbed in hiding her own satisfaction at the turn affairs had taken, and her cousins in deciding to what extent their position had been improved by the discovery of a blank sheet of paper where all had expected to find words, and very important words, too. Consequently it fell to Dr. Bennett to answer me.
"No one can doubt your intentions, Mr. Outhwaite. Miss Meredith will be the first to acknowledge her indebtedness to you when she comes to herself. You have fulfilled your commission according to the dictates of your own conscience. That you have failed to effect all you hoped for is not your fault. As a lawyer you will rate the matter at its worth, and as a man of heart excuse the exaggerated effect it has to all appearance produced upon those about you."
It was a palpable dismissal, and I took it for such, or would have if Miss Meredith, whose attention the word lawyer had seemingly caught, had not honoured me with a look which held me rooted to the spot.
"Wait!" she cried, "I want to speak to that young man. Do not let him go yet." And advancing, she stood before me in an attitude at once womanly and confiding.
"Come back, Hope!" I heard uttered in the peremptory tones of him they called Leighton.
But though the spasm which passed over her face denoted what it cost her to disobey the voice of so near a relative, she stood her ground.
"I need a friend," she said to me. "Someone who will stand by me and support me in a task I may find myself too weak to accomplish unaided. I cannot have recourse to my cousins. They are too closely connected with the sorrows brought upon us all by this event. Besides, I find it easier to depend on a stranger,—one who does not care for me, as Dr. Bennett does; a lawyer, too; I may need a lawyer—sir, will you aid me with your counsels? I should find it hard to come upon another man of such evident sincerity as yourself."
"Hope! Hope!"
Entreaty had now become command; Leighton even took a step towards her. She faltered, but managed to murmur:
"You will not go till I have seen you again. You will not!"