“Perhaps it was as a preliminary to his confessions. Did he give you a history of his loves? Have they been very numerous?”
“No,” she exclaimed, almost angrily; “he told me, on the contrary, that I was the first person he had ever wished to marry.”
“Did you remind him of his proposal to your sister?”
This contradiction to his words seemed to have entirely escaped her memory; she coloured violently, and the ready tears again prepared to flow. Hamilton felt that he was amusing himself unpardonably at the poor girl’s expense, teasing her beyond what she could bear, and was preparing to set all to rights again by playing a little sentiment, when she arose precipitately, and with such ill-concealed annoyance, to walk towards Major Stultz, that instead of picking up her large ball of thread, she drew it rashly after her, jerking it over the flower-beds, and entangling it so effectually in a rose-bush as she moved quickly on, that Hamilton ran to her assistance, and, as he restored it to her, said, in a low voice, in French,—
“This evening I shall be in the cloisters before sunset. Meet me there, I entreat you. I wish to ask your pardon, if I have offended you.”
The shadows of evening had no sooner begun perceptibly to lengthen, than Hamilton repaired to the cloisters, and amused himself endeavouring to decipher the epitaphs on the various tombstones, until a light step close beside him made him look up, and he beheld, not Crescenz, but Hildegarde, standing before him. He was about to pass her with a slight inclination, when she stopped suddenly, and, while she slightly blushed, said firmly,—
“I am the bearer of a message from my sister.”
“The willing bearer of her excuses, no doubt.”
“I understood it was you who were to have made excuses,” she answered, coldly.
“Very true. I had to ask forgiveness for having offended her in the garden to-day; as, however, the excuses are only intended for her ear, let us consider them made, and talk of something else.”