But at this moment they reached the Hall, in spite of Colonel Dacre’s lingering, and he carried her carefully over the threshold, and placed her on the sofa in a small room, which had once been his mother’s boudoir, and where the pretty things a refined woman likes to collect around her lay about in elegant profusion.
“Now I will go and speak to my housekeeper, and place you in her charge during my absence,” he said; and was moving toward the door, when she put out her hand and detained him.
“Colonel Dacre, will you do me a great favor?”
“A dozen if I had the chance,” he answered, with more vehemence than he was conscious of.
“I don’t want any one to know I am here until you return.”
“Oh, but, Lady Gwendolyn, it is impossible that I should leave you without assistance.”
“Not if I prefer it?” she asked, with her most persuasive accent.
“When people want things that are bad for them we generally serve them, in spite of themselves, by a denial.”
“Yes; but this is not really bad for me. My foot has entirely ceased to pain me, and what I want now is simply rest and quiet. I know Mrs. Whittaker, and she is a terrible gossip. I could not stand her in my best moments; now she would irritate me beyond endurance.”
Seeing him still hesitate, she added, in a decided tone: