“Will you take me into the garden, Captain Norton?” said Lady Gernon, in a low tone. “I have something to say to you.” Then aloud: “Do you not find the weather very oppressive? I am always longing for the fresh air.”
The remark was too pointed to escape observation, for Lady Gernon was no way skilled in subterfuge, while Norton hesitated for an instant, and there was a slight change in his countenance as he rose, saying:
“You have probably not seen our poor place, Lady Gernon; will you walk round?” She rose on the instant and took his arm, and they passed through the French window on to the lawn, while, half rising, Ada Norton looked anxiously in Sir Murray’s face.
“No,” he replied calmly, as, with a bitter smile on his lip, he read off her unspoken words. “I think we will stay. They will probably return directly;” and then he started, in a cool and indolent way, a fresh topic of conversation, to which, in the agitation she could not conceal, Ada could but reply in monosyllables.
“Well, Marion,” said Norton, calmly, as they stood amidst the flower-beds of the little parterre, “you wish to speak to me?”
“Yes, yes,” she said, eagerly. “I know that it may seem strange, but, Philip, I could not rest till I had spoken to you. Heaven willed that we should not be one, and I am now another’s. You loved me once; will you, for the sake of that old love, make me a promise?”
“Loved you once—promise!” said Norton, bitterly.
“Yes,” she cried, eagerly; “promise me, and then let the past be dead.”
“What would you have me promise?” he said. “Though you fail with yours.”
“Hush!” she said, imploringly; “do not be cruel. Now, at once, promise for the sake of our old dead love, that the past shall all be forgotten, and that you will treat my husband as a friend.”