I continued silent, whilst Mr Faulkland remained ardently gazing at me.
My brother, I believe, thought us too solemn; the occasion indeed required it: but his fears for Mr Faulkland made him wish to give the scene a livelier turn.
Come, sister, said he, let us not defer the happy event for which we are now met, we have no time to waste in ceremony. You remember what our mother used to say, ‘Many things fall out between the cup and the lip.’ My brother rose off his chair as he said this. Mr Warner taking the hint, approached, and took me by the hand, Let me, said he, to Mr Faulkland, have the happiness of bestowing this best of Creatures on the man that I think best deserves her.
Mr Faulkland made no reply; but in taking the hand that my kinsman put into his, his looks spoke the rapture that swelled his heart; though I saw he put a constraint upon himself, and endeavoured to assume a deportment suitable to the important and solemn occasion.
After the indissoluble knot was tied, my brother desired Mr Faulkland to retire with him into the next room for a few minutes.
I concluded it was in order to press his departure, and to prevail on him to submit to going without me.
This I found afterwards was the subject of their conversation.
They returned to us in about a quarter of an hour, Mr Faulkland’s countenance less embarrassed than it was at going out of the room. On their entering, Mr Price took his leave. My brother addressed Mr Warner and me. Faulkland, said he, is convinced of the necessity there is for his immediately withdrawing from England, and he is determined to depart from hence at three o’clock to-morrow morning; for I would by no means have him leave London by day-light, as we know not who may be on the watch to trace his steps. He has consented that you, sister, should remain behind till Mr Warner’s affairs will permit him to conduct you over. In the mean time, Master Faulkland is to be brought from Ireland; and if you should not be ready to depart before his arrival, you may take him over with you to Holland.
Mr Faulkland seemed rather to suffer my brother to make this explanation for him, than to assent chearfully to it. Mr Warner and I however laid hold of it, and immediately entered into discourse on the subject of our domestic concerns, and the measures proper to be observed on so critical an occasion.
Mr Faulkland joined in the conversation with the utmost composure; and to my unspeakable joy, seemed perfectly settled and collected in his mind. I thought indeed he appeared a little constrained, and that he seemed to keep a constant guard over himself, lest he should betray any symptom of a too much heated imagination: but my kinsman afterwards observed with pleasure to me, that this denoted nothing more than a consciousness in Mr Faulkland of the unhappy wandering that had before so much alarmed us all; and into which he was sure there was not the least danger of his relapsing, as his heart was now perfectly at ease.