AGNES RECEIVES AN UNEXPECTED VISITER, AND AN IMPORTANT COMMUNICATION.—SHE ALSO RECEIVES A LETTER FROM CHELTENHAM, AND FROM HER AUNT BARNABY.
Agnes was roused from this state of melancholy musing by a double knock at the door.
"Is it possible," she said, starting up, "that she spoke truly, and that she is already released?"
The street-door was opened, but the voice of Mrs. Barnaby did not make its way up the stairs before her—a circumstance so inevitable upon her approach,—that, after listening for it in vain for a moment, the desolate girl resumed her attitude, and endeavoured to recover the train of thought that had been broken. But she was not destined to do so, at least for the present, for the maid threw open the drawing-room door, and announced "A gentleman."
Agnes, as we have said, was sitting in darkness, and the girl very judiciously placed her slender tallow-candle in its tin receptacle on the table, saying, as she set a chair for "the gentleman," "I will bring candles in a minute, miss," and then departed.
Agnes raised her eyes as the visiter approached, and had the light been feebler still she would have found no difficulty in discovering that it was Colonel Hubert who stood before her. He bowed to the angle of the most profound respect, and though he ventured to extend his hand in friendly greeting, he took hers with the air of a courtier permitted to offer homage to a sovereign princess.
Agnes stood up, she received his offered hand, and raised her eyes to his face, but uttered no word either of surprise or joy. Her face was colourless, and traces of very recent tears were plainly visible; she trembled from head to foot, and Colonel Hubert, frightened, as a brave man always is when he sees a woman really sinking under her sex's weakness, replaced her on the sofa almost as incapable of speaking as herself.
"Do not appear distressed at seeing me, dearest Miss Willoughby," said he, "or I shall be obliged to repent having ventured to wait on you. I should not have presumed to do this, had not your friends, your truly attached friends, my aunt and sister, authorized my doing so."
"Oh! what kindness!" exclaimed poor Agnes, bursting into a flood of most salutary tears. "Do not think me ungrateful, Colonel Hubert, if I could not say ... if I did not speak to you.... Do you, indeed, come to me from Lady Elizabeth?"
"Here are my credentials," he replied, smiling, and presenting a letter to her. "We learned that your foolish aunt ... forgive me, Miss Willoughby; but the step I have taken can only be excused by explaining it with the most frank sincerity ... we learned that Mrs. Barnaby, having quitted Cheltenham suddenly, (the ostensible reason for doing which was bad enough), had left a variety of debts unpaid; and that her creditors, alarmed at her not returning, were taking active measures to secure her person.... Is this true?... Is your aunt arrested?"