"Dearest," whispered he hurriedly, after she left the room, "there are things we must trust no one with—never name my visit to your room. I might, possibly, come again thus, but I will not; I would not have your fame endangered—oh, not even if by those visits I could win you! But do this: look from your window at eleven to-morrow night, and I will devise some means of communicating safely with you. I fear Gillett will serve us no more; the poor woman is alarmed at possible consequences."
"Hush! here she comes," ejaculated Minnie; and, as she spoke, the woman came hastily in: there was joy on her countenance.
"Come," she said, in a low tone, "I've found one; and, if they catch me at these tricks again, they may leave me in the lurch!" She was evidently addressing her thoughts to some invisible Fates. No entreaties could move her obdurate determination—she was firm.
Embarrassments chill the old heart, and quicken the young. The two parted, as such a parting would naturally be, in the uncertainty of soon meeting. Miles was turned out unceremoniously, first; and then the tearful Minnie was taken up to her prison; and Mrs. Gillett promised "to think it over, and see what could be done." And thus she left her to her reflections, which were any thing but cheering. Poor girl! had her mother lived, and been a good, sensible woman, the child would have been like a lovely parterre, rich in beautiful flowers, from among which the weeds had been judiciously eradicated. As it was, full of warm and generous affections, they had been badly directed by contrary interests. Her aunts and uncle all conceived, and justly, that they had an equal right to her regard, duty, and obedience. Most unfortunately, all pulled different ways. Juvenal and Sylvia wore her spirit by bad, peevish tempers; only Dorcas could have supplied a mother's place, and her power was almost neutralized by the other two. Thus, Minnie had grown up with an independence of mind not often met with at her age. She loved Dorcas dearly; but her keen perception made her perfectly alive to all the absurdity of Juvenal and Sylvia. Her heart had nursed up almost all its warmth of love, to cast the whole of it on one die—Tremenhere's faith and love. She had, fortunately, chosen a worthy object, and yet one unfitting herself in many ways.
He was impassioned, impetuous, jealous: one to exact all from her; and even then, when her soul lay bare before him, suspect that a warmer affection might be found there, if he but knew the talisman which would unlock the secret recesses of it. He had a want of confidence in himself, which would cause him many a bitter hour. Had she loved and married Skaife, her life would have been one of the most complete happiness this earth could have afforded. As it was, her whole soul was given to Tremenhere—he absorbed all. In the confidence of her young, childish heart, she could conceal no part of it from him: she loved like a slave, ready to obey him blindly in all things, unquestioning, undoubting. He was her master, before whom she crouched in perfect contempt of self, and hugged her chains. And this was the man they threatened to separate her from! Though the mortal woman wept at her oppression, the immortal soul laughed them to scorn!—they could not make her forget him!
The day following these events, Miles had a long interview with Skaife, to whom he had become deeply indebted in gratitude for his efforts in his favour. A sincere friendship had sprung up between them, yet not without some bitterness to Skaife, who could not yet eradicate Minnie's thought from his heart. Though graven there in bitterness, he sincerely wished to make her happy, and felt she would, in all human probability, be so with Tremenhere—loving him, and so well beloved. But even this desire of promoting her happiness, made him conscientiously refuse to accede to a solicitation of Tremenhere's, namely, to perform a private marriage between them. It will be seen this latter's resolutions were fading away before the probable trouble before them—thus it occurred. On leaving Minnie the evening they met, as we have seen, he walked homeward in deep thought; the more he reflected upon her threatened removal, the more he trembled for the result. He did not know her sufficiently well—he deemed that, like most girls, though all affection then, once removed—persecuted, threatened, coerced—her spirit would give way, and she, perhaps, become the wife of his cousin—Minnie, his Minnie! It was a spiritualized madness the thought; for he felt it would haunt him even in the grave—that nothing could throw a veil of oblivion over it. He had never spoken half his passionate love to her—he feared lest, in giving vent to it, it might master and carry him away to some deed he afterwards should bitterly regret—such, for instance, as eloping with her. His ideas of women, were more than ordinarily rigid, in young men. He had thought and suffered so much on his mother's account, in whose case, though he did not for an instant suspect her virtue, still, he feared there had been some imprudence—some laxity in necessary caution, to have created this long, and as yet unavailing, search for proof of her marriage. He fancied it had been private, or by some minister not of legal ordination—he scarcely knew what to imagine. And yet, in the face of all this—driven by the fear of losing Minnie, he implored Skaife to marry them privately.
"I have yet one more effort to make," he said, "to gain her uncle's consent—if that fail me, then there will only be ourselves to rely upon."
"Knowing you as I do, even in this short space of time," answered Skaife, "let me implore you never to lead her, however slightly, from the path of duty. I know—I am sure—it would rise in your heart against her, some day."
"I would not dream of it, except in an extreme case," said Tremenhere; "but if they take her away, what will my position then be? There she will be under the eye of one—my cousin—who has the devil's cunning. They will act upon her heart in every way. Poor child!—what would she be in their hands?"
"And what would your feelings then be, were she privately your wife? How could you endure in absence all she would be made to suffer?"