"You left it incomplete," replied Smeaton; "and, as it is one of my dear old nursery songs too, I felt myself called upon for its honour to add the last stanza--at least, the last that I remember; for I believe there are several more."
"Oh, yes," replied Emmeline. "I will sing them all to you some evening, though Sir John Newark is not very fond of music. Are you?"
"I do not know what life would be without it," replied Smeaton. "Mine, I know, would have lost many of its few happy hours."
"And does your wife like music? And does she sing often? And has she a good voice?" exclaimed Emmeline, putting question upon question before her companion could answer. But a gay smile upon Smeaton's lips stopped her at length.
"My wife, dear lady!" he said, half laughing. "My wife! I hope she will sing, if I am ever fortunate enough to have one; but, up to the present hour, certainly, I have no wife."
Emmeline looked astonished, almost frightened; and, for a moment, she stood, gazing in his face in silence, and then said, in a slow and hesitating manner--
"Sir John Newark told me you had a wife."
"Did he, indeed?" asked Smeaton, with a smile, not unmingled with a look of astonishment; but, the moment after, he added--"Now, I remember, there was conversation between us regarding Lady Eskdale. He must have changed my mother into my wife, it seems, which is contrary, dear lady, to the law of all lands. He pressed the subject upon me, I recollect; and I gave him very short answers, not thinking fit to enter upon my own or my mother's affairs with him. I imagined that he wished to discover what we intended to do with Keanton; but he has led himself into a very great mistake; for I have no wife, I can assure you, dear lady."
Emmeline was agitated, she knew not why. Indeed she did not ask herself. All that she felt was that her heart beat more quickly than usual; that a change seemed to have come over her thoughts and feelings in an instant; that all was altered in the relations between her and her companion. It seemed very strange to her; it confused her, even seemed to alarm her and, with eager quickness, memory ran back over all that had passed between her and Smeaton, as though to ascertain if she had committed no fault towards him under the mistake into which she had been led. She remembered that he had twice called her Emmeline; and she recollected more than once that a look of admiration had come upon his face, when his eyes were turned towards her, the very memory of which deepened the colour in her cheek. She was very young and very inexperienced; and the discovery she had made filled her with many emotions which she strove not to disentangle or to scan, but which, though agitating, were certainly not painful. She remained so long silent, however, busied in these thoughts, that Smeaton himself was somewhat pained.
"She has been only thus bright and frank with me," he thought, "because she believed me to be a married man; and in all the signs of dawning regard which I fancied her looks and words betrayed, I have been mistaken."