“Why, I saw you with her hand in yours, not ten minutes ago,” cried Humphrey, indignantly.
“I’ve been calling you fool and dolt, Humphrey,” said Trevor, cooling down, “when I’ve been both to let my passion get the better of me, as it has. There’s a wretched mistake over this altogether; and more mischief done,” he continued, bitterly, “than you can imagine. You think, then, that Mrs Lloyd has that idea in her head?”
“Think, sir!” cried the keeper, hotly, “I know it. Hasn’t she forbidden me to speak to the poor girl? Hasn’t she half-broken her heart?”
“Humphrey,” said Trevor, “you had good reason for feeling angry, but not with me.”
Humphrey looked at him searchingly.
“You doubt me?” said Trevor.
“Will you say it again, sir?” cried the young man, pitifully—“will you swear it?”
“I give you my word of honour as a gentleman, Humphrey, that I have never given the girl a thought; and that this afternoon, when I spoke to her, it was to ask her if she came there to meet you; and she owned her aunt had sent her.”
“Master Dick—Master Dick!” cried the young man in a choking voice, “will you forgive me, sir? If I had known that, sir, I’d sooner have cut my right hand off than have done what I did.”
“It was all a mistake, Humphrey. There—that will do.”