Clemency started with surprise and trouble as, following the direction of the speaker’s eyes, she saw a dark figure standing in the doorway.
“In another moment you may be discovered,” said Marion. “Not now! Wait, if you can, in some concealment. I will come, presently.”
He waved his hand to her, and was gone.
“Don’t go to bed. Wait here for me!” said Marion, hurriedly. “I have been seeking to speak to you for an hour past. Oh, be true to me!”
Eagerly seizing her bewildered hand, and pressing it with both her own to her breast—an action more expressive, in its passion of entreaty, than the most eloquent appeal in words,—Marion withdrew; as the light of the returning lantern flashed into the room.
“All still and peaceable. Nobody there. Fancy, I suppose,” said Mr. Britain, as he locked and barred the door. “One of the effects of having a lively imagination. Halloa! Why, what’s the matter?”
Clemency, who could not conceal the effects of her surprise and concern, was sitting in a chair: pale, and trembling from head to foot.
“Matter!” she repeated, chafing her hands and elbows, nervously, and looking anywhere but at him. “That’s good in you, Britain, that is! After going and frightening one out of one’s life with noises, and lanterns, and I don’t know what all. Matter! Oh, yes.”
“If you’re frightened out of your life by a lantern, Clemmy,” said Mr. Britain, composedly blowing it out and hanging it up again, “that apparition’s very soon got rid of. But you’re as bold as brass in general,” he said, stopping to observe her; “and were, after the noise and the lantern too. What have you taken into your head? Not an idea, eh?”
But as Clemency bade him good night very much after her usual fashion, and began to bustle about with a show of going to bed herself immediately, Little Britain, after giving utterance to the original remark that it was impossible to account for a woman’s whims, bade her good night in return, and taking up his candle strolled drowsily away to bed.