“But it is not,” cried he, eagerly. “Such fortune never befell me before. I have gone a good deal into life,—seen scores of people in country-houses and the like; but I never met any one before I could speak to of myself,—I mean, that I had courage to tell—not that, exactly—but that I wanted them to know I was n't so bad a fellow—so reckless or so heartless as people thought me.”
“And is that the character you bear?” said she, with, though not visible to him, a faint smile on her mouth.
“I think it's what my family would say of me,—I mean now, for once on a time I was a favorite at home.”
“And why are you not still?”
“Because I was extravagant; because I went into debt; because I got very easily into scrapes, and very badly out of them,—not dishonorably, mind; the scrapes I speak of were money troubles, and they brought me into collision with my governor. That was how it came about I was sent over here. They meant as a punishment what has turned out the greatest happiness of my life.”
“How cold the water is!” said Lucy, as, taking off her glove, she suffered her hand to dip in the water beside the boat.
“Deliciously cold,” said he, as, plunging in his hand, he managed, as though by accident, to touch hers. She drew it rapidly away, however, and then, to prevent the conversation returning to its former channel, said aloud: “What are you laughing over so heartily, Sir Brook? You and Tom appear to have fallen upon a mine of drollery. Do share it with us.”
“You shall hear it all one of these days, Lucy. Jog the doctor's arm now and wake him up, for I see the lights at the boat-house, and we shall soon be on shore.”
“And sorry I am for it,” muttered Trafford, in a whisper; “I wish this night could be drawn out to years.”