Stooping down, he scraped away the loose earth and discovered the grating on which he had built such high hopes.
“This is what I found to-night,” said he. “It may be only the covering of an old drain. But it may be something more. At any rate, that is my secret, which I have confided to nobody but you. Is that confidence enough? Now do you believe I care for you?”
It was a bold stroke, and he watched the effect in desperate excitement. Lady Marion’s sallow face lighted up with eagerness as great as his own as she looked down at the rusty grating, which, slightly displaced during Rees’s labours, shook under the tread.
“But did you do it for me, Rees—really for me?” she asked still half-doubtfully.
“If I had not, why should I confide in you? I did not want you to know my aims yet, certainly; I was too much humiliated by your father. But you have found me out, so you may as well know everything. Now, Marion, if ever I get your father to accept me for a son-in-law, will you have me?”
The poor affectionate girl was overjoyed. She hung about him, kissed his hands and his hair, and assured him that she would wait ten years for him if a prince were to woo her. She begged him to see her home as far as the park gates, as a compensation for the fact that they would have to be circumspect and content to see each other seldom. It was Rees who, impatient at her demonstrativeness, impressed this upon her.
“But I can come and see you at the same place to-morrow evening,” said she. “Mademoiselle de Laval always leaves us quite undisturbed in the evening, and thinks we are busy over our Greek. I can slip out without the least danger. I shall come; don’t be afraid.”
Rees was already wishing her or himself at the bottom of the sea. Overwhelmed with shame and anger at his own conduct, he bade her as hasty a farewell as she would allow, returning her passionate kisses with embraces so reluctant and perfunctory that if she had not been so infatuated they must have chilled her own warmth.
Then, when she had left him and disappeared through a little side-gate into the park, he crept, with slow feet and hanging head, towards Goodhare’s lodging.
The librarian was enjoying a frugal supper of a couple of poached eggs, a slice of bread and butter, and a glass of milk; and as he ate he studied a heavy, much-used volume of Cicero.