"Do you remember that I left you on the shrubbery-seat this morning fast asleep?"
"Oh! perfectly.—You mean, then, to confess that the doing so was unwatchful and unfriendly: and, indeed, I think it was. How did you know but I might be awakened by some venomous reptile that should come to sting me?"
"Believe me, I thought the place secure from interruption of every kind. But I had reason to think afterwards that it did not prove so."
"What do you mean, Miss Torrington?" replied Henrietta, in an accent of some asperity. "I presume you did not creep away for the purpose of spying at me from a distance?"
"Oh no!—You cannot, I am sure, suspect me of wishing to spy at you at all. And yet things have so fallen out, that when I tell you all, you must suspect me of it—unless you believe me, as I trust you do, incapable of such an action."
"Pray do not speak in riddles," said Henrietta impatiently. "What is it you have got to confess to me? Tell me at once, Miss Torrington."
"You really do not encourage me to be very frank with you, for you seem angry already. But the truth is, Miss Cartwright, that I did most unintentionally overhear your conversation with Mr. Hetherington."
"The whole of it?—Did you hear the whole of it, Rosalind?"
"Not quite. The gentleman appeared to be in the midst of his declaration when my unwilling ears became his confidants."
"And then you listened to the end?"