“And you therefore decline to entrust me, who am well acquainted with Agnes, to deliver a similar letter into her hand? Your lordship is wrong in thus refusing to be guided by me,” continued the crafty old woman. “Think you that with one so innocent, so artless as Agnes, I cannot prepare the way to render your letter acceptable—at least to prevent it from producing a sudden shock to her notions of maidenly propriety?”
“Much as I should be rejoiced could you accomplish that aim,” said Trevelyan, “I should be ten thousand times happier were you able to procure me an interview with her.”
“This is madness!” exclaimed the old woman. “Can I not more easily induce her to read a letter from a stranger, than to receive that stranger in person? Is not the letter the first and most natural step to the visit? Trust to me, my lord: I know the disposition of Agnes—I understand affairs of this nature—and I am also well aware that love blinds you to the ways of prudence.”
“Be it, then, as you propose,” said Lord William, after a long pause, during which be reflected profoundly. “I will write the letter this evening: will you call for it early to-morrow morning?”
“I will,” answered the old woman: “and in less than twenty-four hours I will undertake to bring you tidings calculated to encourage hope—or I am very much mistaken,” she added emphatically.
“You do not believe—you have no reason to suppose that the father of Agnes already destines her to become the bride of some person of his own choice?” asked Trevelyan, now for the first time shaping in words an idea that had haunted him for some days past. “Because,” he continued, speaking with the rapidity of excitement, “I cannot possibly comprehend wherefore he compels her to dwell in that strict seclusion.”
“I do not believe that you have any such cause for apprehension,” said Mrs. Mortimer, in a tone of confidence—as if she were well able to give the species of assurance which she so emphatically conveyed. “There is a mystery—a deep mystery attached to the fair recluse,—and what that mystery is, I am myself completely ignorant. But that the father of Agnes has no such intention as the one you imagined, and that Agnes herself has as yet never known the passion of love,—these are facts to which I do not hesitate to pledge myself most solemnly.”
“Oh! then there is indeed room for hope!” exclaimed Lord William, his countenance brightening up and joy flashing in his eyes.
“A nobleman in your position—blessed with wealth and a handsome person—endowed with agreeable manners and a cultivated mind,” said Mrs. Mortimer, “need not despair of winning the love and securing the hand of a maiden dwelling in utter obscurity and totally unacquainted with the world.”
“I would rather that she should learn to love me for my own sake, madam,” observed Lord William, in a serious tone, “than for any adventitious advantages of rank or social position that I may possess.”