“And remain close prisoner till I liberate you?”
“Everything you command.”
“I thank you much, and I am very proud of my success,” said she, offering her hand. “Shall I own to you,” said she, after a pause, “that my brother's nerves have been so shaken by the agitation he has passed through, and by the continual pressure of thinking that it is his own personal fault that this battle has been so ill contested, that the faintest show of censure on him now would be more than he could bear? I have little doubt that the cause is lost, and I am only eager that poor Augustus should not feel it was lost through him.”
She was greatly agitated as she spoke, and, with a hurried farewell, she turned and left him.
CHAPTER LXIII. THE CLIENT AND HIS LAWYER.
When the rest of the party had left the dinner-room, and Augustus Bramleigh and Mr. Sedley found themselves alone, a silence of several minutes ensued; a very solemn pause each felt it, well knowing that at such a moment the slightest word may be the signal for disclosures which involve a destiny. Up to this, nothing had been said on either side of “the cause;” and though Sedley had travelled across Europe to speak of it, he waited with decorous reserve till his host should invite him to the topic.
Bramleigh, an awkward and timid man at the best of times, was still more so when he found himself in a situation in which he should give the initiative. As the entertainer of a guest, too, he fancied that to introduce his personal interests as matter of conversation would be in bad taste, and so he fidgeted, and passed the decanters across the table with a nervous impatience, trying to seem at his ease, and stammering out at last some unmeaning question about the other's journey.
Sedley replied to the inquiry with a cold and measured politeness, as a man might to a matter purely irrelevant.
“The Continent is comparatively new ground to you, Mr. Sedley?”