“A little pain in my side, nothing more!”
“Chaunge places with me, sir,” cried the Lothario, officiously. “Now do!” The pale gentleman, after a short hesitation, and a bashful excuse, accepted the proposal. In a few moments the young lady and the beau were in deep and whispered conversation, their heads turned towards the window. The pale gentleman continued to gaze at Philip, till the latter, perceiving the notice he excited, coloured, and replaced his cap over his face.
“Are you going to N——? asked the gentleman, in a gentle, timid voice.
“Yes!”
“Is it the first time you have ever been there?”
“Sir!” returned Philip, in a voice that spoke surprise and distaste at his neighbour’s curiosity.
“Forgive me,” said the gentleman, shrinking back; “but you remind me of-of—a family I once knew in the town. Do you know—the—the Mortons?”
One in Philip’s situation, with, as he supposed, the officers of justice in his track (for Gawtrey, for reasons of his own, rather encouraged than allayed his fears), might well be suspicious. He replied therefore shortly, “I am quite a stranger to the town,” and ensconced himself in the corner, as if to take a nap. Alas! that answer was one of the many obstacles he was doomed to build up between himself and a fairer fate.
The gentleman sighed again, and never spoke more to the end of the journey. When the coach halted at the inn,—the same inn which had before given its shelter to poor Catherine,—the young man in the white coat opened the door, and offered his arm to the young lady.
“Do you make any stay here, sir?” said she to the beau, as she unpinned her bonnet from the roof.