“I will not intrude longer,” he said. “You will wish me bon voyage? I am leaving St. Augustine immediately.”
“Oh, yes,” answered Aimée, eagerly. “I wish you bon voyage with all my heart, and I shall not forget—”
She paused abruptly—remembering that she must not say, “I shall not forget to give your message to Fanny”—and of course the sudden pause and blush which accompanied it could bear but one interpretation to the looker-on.
“I shall not forget your kindness,” said Kyrle, conscious of the false position in which she was placed, and angry at his inability to right it. But, fearing to do harm and complicate matters further by any attempt in that direction, he felt that the best thing he could do was to go. So with a parting bow he left the room, hearing, as he went, an angry voice saying:
“Who is that man, Aimée?—and what is the meaning of this?”
VII.
Aimée looked straightly and bravely into the questioner’s face.
“That,” she said, quietly, “is Mr. Kyrle. You do not know him, so we need not discuss his visit. Tell me why you have come for me. Is mamma ill?”
“No,” answered the young man, whose sufficiently good-looking countenance was very much disfigured by the frown with which he was regarding her; “she is very well, but it is necessary that you should go home at once. And I did not come a day too soon, if this is how you are engaged.”