“Then you forgive her the injury she did you?”
“It was out of love for you; and she did not know me then. Let us go.”
“Impossible,” he said, taking her in his arms. “She has left here for ever. Some day we may see her, but the proposal is to come from her.”
They did not hear the door open as they stood clasped in each other’s arms, nor hear it softly closed, nor the whispers on the landing, as one of the visitors half sobbed:
“Ain’t it lovely, Jo-si-ah? Did you see ’em? If it wasn’t rude and wrong, I could stand and watch ’em for hours. It do put one in mind of the days when—”
“Hold your tongue, you stupid old woman,” was the gruff reply. “It’s quite disgusting. A woman at your time of life wanting to watch a pair of young people there, and no candles lit.”
“Hush! Don’t talk so loud, or they’ll hear us; and now, Jo-si-ah, as it’s in my mind, I may as well say it to you at once.”
“Now, look here,” said Barclay in a low voice, in obedience to his wife’s request, but speaking quickly, “I’ve been bitten pretty heavily by the fellows in the regiment that has just gone, so if it’s any new plan of yours that means money, you may stop it, for not a shilling do you get from me. There!”
“And at your time of life, too! To tell such fibs, Jo-si-ah! Just as if I didn’t know that you’ve made a profit of Sir Harry Payne alone, enough to cover all your losses. Now, look here: I don’t like little Mrs Burnett, or Gravani, or whatever her name is, but seeing how she’s left alone in the world, and nobody’s wife after all, and poor Mr Denville is poor Mr Denville, and it’s a tax upon him, and you’re out so much, I’ve been thinking, I say—”
“Wouldn’t do, old lady. She’s not the woman who would make our home comfortable; and besides—”