“My dear, dear Emily,” I said, “do not I entreat of you add to the misery I am this moment enduring by letting me see you thus. Whatever your wrongs towards me, this is far too heavy a retribution. My object was never to make you wretched, if I am not to obtain the bliss, to strive and make you happy.”
“Oh, Harry”—this was the first time she had ever so called me—“how like you, to think of me—of me, at such a time, as if I was not the cause of all our present unhappiness—but not wilfully, not intentionally. Oh, no, no—your attentions—the flattery of your notice, took me at once, and, in the gratification of my self-esteem, I forgot all else. I heard, too, that you were engaged to another, and believing, as I did, that you were trifling with my affections, I spared no effort to win your’s. I confess it, I wished this with all my soul.”
“And now,” said I, “that you have gained them”—Here was a pretty sequel to my well matured plans!—“And now Emily”—
“But have I really done so?” said she, hurriedly turning round and fixing her large full eyes upon me, while one of her hands played convulsively through my hair—“have I your heart? your whole heart?”
“Can you doubt it, dearest,” said I, passionately pressing her to my bosom; and at the same time muttering, “What the devil’s in the wind now; we are surely not going to patch up our separation, and make love in earnest.”
There she lay, her head upon my shoulder, her long, brown, waving ringlets falling loosely across my face and on my bosom, her hand in mine. What were her thoughts I cannot guess—mine, God forgive me, were a fervent wish either for her mother’s appearance, or that the hotel would suddenly take fire, or some other extensive calamity arise to put the finishing stroke to this embarassing situation.
None of these, however, were destined to occur; and Emily lay still and motionless as she was, scarce seeming to breathe, and pale as death. What can this mean, said I, surely this is not the usual way to treat with a rejected suitor; if it be, why then, by Jupiter the successful one must have rather the worst of it—and I fervently hope that Lady Jane be not at this moment giving his conge to some disappointed swain. She slowly raised her long, black fringed eyelids, and looked into my face, with an expression at once so tender and so plaintive, that I felt a struggle within myself whether to press her to my heart, or—what the deuce was the alternative. I hope my reader knows, for I really do not. And after all, thought I, if we are to marry, I am only anticipating a little; and if not, why then a “chaste salute,” as Winifred Jenkins calls it, she’ll be none the worse for. Acting at once upon this resolve, I leaned downwards, and passing back her ringlets from her now flushed cheek, I was startled by my name, which I heard called several times in the corridor. The door at the same instant was burst suddenly open, and Trevanion appeared.
“Harry, Harry Lorrequer,” cried he, as he entered; then suddenly checking himself, added “a thousand, ten thousand pardons. But—”
“But what,” cried I passionately, forgetting all save the situation of poor Emily at the moment, “what can justify—”
“Nothing certainly can justify such an intrusion,” said Trevanion, finishing my sentence for me, “except the very near danger you run this moment in being arrested. O’Leary’s imprudence has compromised your safety, and you must leave Paris within an hour.”