"Oh no, that she won't," said the boy. "I suppose I'm not to tell anybody else but Captain Longly, that you are here?"
"On no account, whatever," replied Charles Tyrrell; and the boy's father added, "Keep a sharp look out, that you're not watched, Jim, and be as fast as you can."
The boy then went away, and when the door was closed behind him, Charles Tyrrell sat down upon the edge of the bed on which he had spent so many a painful and weary hour: but the conversation between him and Hailes was not continuously resumed. The youngest of the children, who had been awake when the young gentleman arrived, had now fallen asleep as it sat, and the father lifted it to the bed, and laid it thereon, without even rousing it from its slumbers.
For nearly an hour then, Charles and his companion sat without speaking, in the silent gloom of expectation. Nothing was heard but the low sighing of the wind along the sea, and the dash of the waves upon the shore, and nothing interrupted the stillness but a single broken question, and an answer as brief as possible.
At length, somewhat after one o'clock in the morning, there came a gentle tap at the door, and Hailes, looking out at the cottage-window, said,
"There's a woman, so I may open the door."
The moment it was opened, Hannah Longly glided in with the boy, and advanced joyfully toward Charles Tyrrell. All the little coquetry of her manner and appearance was gone, and anxiety, grief, and suffering, had given a higher, and more intellectual character to a countenance which had always been beautiful.
"Oh, I am so glad to see you free, Sir Charles," she said, "and so is my father, to hear that you are so. He told me to say, that he dare not come down, as there are people constantly watching him, but that you might tell me anything you had to say, and only to lay your commands upon him, and they should be obeyed."
"Why, to tell you the truth, Miss Longly," replied Charles Tyrrell, "it was you I wanted to speak to more than him. Will you forgive me, for interfering a little with your affairs?"
"I am sure you never do so, but in kindness, Sir Charles," she replied, "and as I am very unhappy, and have no one but my poor father, who takes any interest in me, I shall thank you most deeply for any counsel and assistance."