There is an intoxication quite distinct from that which comes from strong drink. When the judgment is altogether overcome by the spirits this species of drunkenness comes on, and in this way Marian Leslie was drunk that night. For two hours she danced with Captain Ewing, and ever and anon she kept saying to herself that she would teach the world to know—and of all the world Mr. Cumming especially—that she might be lead, but not driven.
Then about four o’clock she went home, and as she attempted to undress herself in her own room she burst into violent tears and opened her heart to her sister—“Oh, Fanny, I do love him, I do love him so dearly! and now he will never come to me again!”
Maurice stood still with his back against the wall, for the full two hours of Marian’s exhibition, and then he said to his aunt before he left—“I hope you have now seen enough; you will hardly mention her name to me again.” Miss Jack groaned from the bottom of her heart but she said nothing. She said nothing that night to any one; but she lay awake in her bed, thinking, till it was time to rise and dress herself. “Ask Miss Marian to come to me,” she said to the black girl who came to assist her. But it was not till she had sent three times, that Miss Marian obeyed the summons.
At three o’clock on the following day Miss Jack arrived at her own hall door in Spanish Town. Long as the distance was she ordinarily rode it all, but on this occasion she had provided a carriage to bring her over as much of the journey as it was practicable for her to perform on wheels. As soon as she reached her own hall door she asked if Mr. Cumming was at home. “Yes,” the servant said. “He was in the small book-room, at the back of the house, up stairs.” Silently, as if afraid of being heard, she stepped up her own stairs into her own drawing-room; and very silently she was followed by a pair of feet lighter and smaller than her own.
Miss Jack was usually somewhat of a despot in her own house, but there was nothing despotic about her now as she peered into the book-room. This she did with her bonnet still on, looking round the half-opened door as though she were afraid to disturb her nephew, he sat at the window looking out into the verandah which ran behind the house, so intent on his thoughts that he did not hear her.
“Maurice,” she said, “can I come in?”
“Come in? oh yes, of course;” and he turned round sharply at her. “I tell you what, aunt; I am not well here and I cannot stay out the session. I shall go back to Mount Pleasant.”
“Maurice,” and she walked close up to him as she spoke, “Maurice, I have brought some one with me to ask your pardon.”
His face became red up to the roots of his hair as he stood looking at her without answering. “You would grant it certainly,” she continued, “if you knew how much it would be valued.”
“Whom do you mean? who is it?” he asked at last.