Deronda and Ezra were just aware of his exit; that was all. But, by-and-by, Mirah came in and made a real interruption. She had not taken off her hat; and when Deronda rose and advanced to shake hands with her, she said, in a confusion at once unaccountable and troublesome to herself,
“I only came in to see that Ezra had his new draught. I must go directly to Mrs. Meyrick’s to fetch something.”
“Pray allow me to walk with you,” said Deronda urgently. “I must not tire Ezra any further; besides my brains are melting. I want to go to Mrs. Meyrick’s: may I go with you?”
“Oh, yes,” said Mirah, blushing still more, with the vague sense of something new in Deronda, and turning away to pour out Ezra’s draught; Ezra meanwhile throwing back his head with his eyes shut, unable to get his mind away from the ideas that had been filling it while the reading was going on. Deronda for a moment stood thinking of nothing but the walk, till Mirah turned round again and brought the draught, when he suddenly remembered that he had laid aside his cravat, and saying—“Pray excuse my dishabille—I did not mean you to see it,” he went to the little table, took up his cravat, and exclaimed with a violent impulse of surprise, “Good heavens, where is my ring gone?” beginning to search about on the floor.
Ezra looked round the corner of his chair. Mirah, quick as thought, went to the spot where Deronda was seeking, and said, “Did you lay it down?”
“Yes,” said Deronda, still unvisited by any other explanation than that the ring had fallen and was lurking in shadow, indiscernable on the variegated carpet. He was moving the bits of furniture near, and searching in all possible and impossible places with hand and eyes.
But another explanation had visited Mirah and taken the color from her cheeks. She went to Ezra’s ear and whispered “Was my father here?” He bent his head in reply, meeting her eyes with terrible understanding. She darted back to the spot where Deronda was still casting down his eyes in that hopeless exploration which we are apt to carry on over a space we have examined in vain. “You have not found it?” she said, hurriedly.
He, meeting her frightened gaze, immediately caught alarm from it and answered, “I perhaps put it in my pocket,” professing to feel for it there.
She watched him and said, “It is not there?—you put it on the table,” with a penetrating voice that would not let him feign to have found it in his pocket; and immediately she rushed out of the room. Deronda followed her—she was gone into the sitting-room below to look for her father—she opened the door of the bedroom to see if he were there—she looked where his hat usually hung—she turned with her hands clasped tight and her lips pale, gazing despairingly out of the window. Then she looked up at Deronda, who had not dared to speak to her in her white agitation. She looked up at him, unable to utter a word—the look seemed a tacit acceptance of the humiliation she felt in his presence. But he, taking her clasped hands between both his, said, in a tone of reverent adoration,
“Mirah, let me think that he is my father as well as yours—that we can have no sorrow, no disgrace, no joy apart. I will rather take your grief to be mine than I would take the brightest joy of another woman. Say you will not reject me—say you will take me to share all things with you. Say you will promise to be my wife—say it now. I have been in doubt so long—I have had to hide my love so long. Say that now and always I may prove to you that I love you with complete love.”