“Stop one minute—stay—I beseech you—and pardon me!” he exclaimed, hastening after her. “I was wrong to address you in such a style: I insulted you grossly—and I crave your forgiveness. But I was bewildered with the intelligence you gave me: mingled joy and surprise deprived me, as it were, of my reason. I imagined the information to be too welcome and too extraordinary to be true!”
“And yet you ere now sought to persuade yourself that Agnes Vernon was chaste and pure, though you were then ignorant of the connexion subsisting between herself and the elderly gentleman who visits her—a connexion which, previously to the explanation I have given you, must at least have appeared suspicious, and calculated to raise the most serious misgivings in your breast.”
“I admit that my conduct is most inconsistent,” exclaimed the young gentleman, in answer to these reproachful words: “but I love Agnes Vernon—I adore her—I worship the very ground upon which she treads——”
“And you have never yet spoken to her?” asked the old woman.
“I have never dared to intrude myself so far upon her notice,” was the reply: “and yet she has seen me frequently in the neighbourhood——”
“But she never gave you the least encouragement, sir,” interrupted Mrs. Mortimer, as if making an assertion, instead of throwing out a remark for the sake of gleaning information.
“Never—never!” exclaimed the young man; “and therefore did I think so well of her character, in spite of the suspicious circumstances attending her seclusion.”
“You have, then, the vanity to suppose that if the beautiful Agnes could have smiled upon any man, you were destined to be that happy one;”—and, as Mrs. Mortimer made this remark, her voice assumed a somewhat caustic tone.
“Oh! you have misunderstood my words,” cried the stranger. “I intended to have you infer that I had never seen any thing in the demeanour and deportment of Agnes Vernon save what is becoming to a young lady of good birth, genteel breeding, and taintless soul. At the same time,” he added, proudly, “I flatter myself that there is nothing particularly disagreeable in my personal appearance, as there is assuredly everything favourable in my social position. But of this Agnes is ignorant; and I am desirous to obtain an interview with her—or to write to her in a respectful manner——”
“And what has hitherto prevented you from doing either?” asked Mrs. Mortimer.