“No, certainly, if you would rather not.”
“But you might think it something wrong.”
“I should never imagine you doing anything wrong, Joan.”
“Then I must tell you, lest it should be wrong.—My brother does not know that you are here.”
Now Cosmo had never imagined that Lord Mergwain did not know he was at the castle. It was true he had not come to see him, but nothing was simpler if Lord Mergwain desired to see Cosmo as little as Cosmo desired, from his recollection of him at Castle Warlock, to see Lord Mergwain. It almost took from him what little breath he had to learn that he had been all this time in a man’s house without his knowledge. No doubt, in good sense and justice, the house was Joan’s too, however little the male aristocracy may be inclined to admit such a statement of rights, but there must be some one at the head of things, and, however ill he might occupy it, that place was naturally his lordship’s, and he had at least a right to know who was in the house. Huge discomfort thereupon invaded Cosmo, and a restless desire to be out of the place. His silence frightened Joan.
“Are you very angry with me, Cosmo,” she said.
“Angry! No, Joan! How could I be angry with you? Only it makes me feel myself where I have no business to be—rather like a thief in fact.”
“Oh, I am so sorry! But what could I do? You don’t know my brother, or you would not wonder. He seems to have a kind of hatred to your family!—I do not in the least know why. Could my father have said anything about you that he misunderstood?—But no, that could not be!—And yet my father did say he knew your house many years before!”
“I don’t care how Lord Mergwain regards me,” said Cosmo; “what angers me is that he should behave so to you that you dare not tell him a thing. Now I am sorry I came without writing to you first!—I don’t know though!—and I can’t say I am sorry I was taken ill, for all the trouble I have been to you; I should never have known otherwise how beautiful and good you are.”
“I’m not good! and I’m not beautiful!” cried Joan, and burst into tears of humiliation and sore-heartedness. What a contrast was their house and its hospitality, she thought, to those in which Cosmo lived one heart and one soul with his father!