Yes—it was Esther;—but how pale—how profoundly mournful her countenance!
"I am rejoiced to meet you," said the Earl in a rapid and excited tone; "for I have news to communicate which will give you joy! But—come with me—I implore you—I know all—look upon me as a friend—and in my presence you need not blush. Delay not—I beseech you—come with me at once!"
And drawing her arm in his, he hurried her away towards Red Lion Street.
"My lord," she said, "I am at a loss to understand——"
"Oh! you know not how nearly that which I have to communicate—to give you evidence of—affects your happiness!" interrupted Arthur. "But I must not tell you all in a breath—it would be too much for you to hear:—and I am glad—Oh! I am rejoiced that I have thus met you—for I had dispatched a messenger to seek you—and he might have broken the happy tidings too abruptly——"
Esther gazed upon his countenance in astonishment mingled with an expression of surprise and even alarm: but the Earl perceived not the strange impression that his words had produced, as he hurried her along at a rate which in a more refined neighbourhood would have attracted disagreeable attention.
The house in Red Lion Street was reached; and the nobleman opened the door with extraordinary impatience.
For an instant Esther hesitated to follow him; but, confident of the honourable intentions of the Earl, and anxious to relieve herself from the state of wonder and suspense into which his words had thrown her, she entered the gloomy-looking tenement.
He led her up the dirty, decayed staircase into the laboratory, where he begged her to wait for a moment. He then softly opened the door communicating with the bed-chamber, in order to acquaint Dr. Lascelles with her presence there, and in a few hurried words explain the motives which had induced him to bring her thither; for he supposed that all those circumstances which had led him to believe that the Jewess was the mistress of his half-brother, were unknown to the doctor.
But the moment he opened the door, he started—and an ejaculation of the wildest surprise burst from his lips.