"Well, then," replied Charles Tyrrell, "to say the truth, I sent to seek you, because my friend Everard Morrison, will be here very speedily, and I do wish to see you on happy terms, once more before I go."
Hannah blushed a good deal, and seemed very much embarrassed.
"Indeed," she said, "I'm afraid I cannot wait--I ought to go very soon--indeed, I ought. I did not know he was coming," and evidently in great agitation, she burst into tears.
Charles Tyrrell took her hand kindly, saying,
"Come, come, do not be agitated my dear young lady. We are all, at this moment, placed in circumstances of an extraordinary and trying kind, and we must not attempt to act, or even to think as we would in the smooth intercourse of ordinary life."
"Oh, but you do not know, Sir Charles," she said, "or you would not wish me to stay. You do not know that he sent a letter, proposing to me, and after I had unfortunately written back what I thought was right, came all this terrible business and my father's anger with me, and then Mr. Morrison sent me a cold and cutting letter, telling me that, as circumstances were altered, he set me quite free of all engagements to him--you do not know all this, or I'm sure you would not wish me to stay."
"I do know it all," replied Charles, "and yet I wish you to stay very much, Miss Longly. Everard still loves you dearly, and if I am not mistaken, so you do him."
She cast down her eyes, but replied nothing, and Charles Tyrrell went on,
"I must not have you throw away your happiness for the want of a little explanation. You will acknowledge, I am sure, that your conduct, unexplained, might well seem strange and wrong."
"Oh, some part of it was certainly wrong," she said; "I did what was very wrong. I coquetted with that base young man, when I really loved another. I let vanity and foolishness get the better of me, Sir Charles, and bitterly have I been punished. But I never entertained a thought of doing any real evil, and when I went down to meet him, it was with the thought of doing what was my duty, and what was right alone; for by that time, I had learned to hate him, and to despise myself for ever having given him any encouragement. My father would not hear me, when I wanted to explain, and I was always afraid of mentioning to anybody else what was the pretence on which he lured me there, for fear of betraying my father's secrets."