I attended the afternoon service in a more reckless mood than ever; and that day at dinner, and during all the evening, was more feverishly gay, more wildly excited than usual; and Henry Lovell, who seemed struck with the strangeness of my manner, for the first time made love to me without reserve. The language of passion was new to my ears; his words made my heart throb and my cheeks bum; but even while he spoke, and while under the influence of a bewildering excitement, which made me feel, for the time, as if I shared his sentiments, I once thought of the crusader. I saw a pale, calm face, with its well known features, under the warrior's helmet; and I felt that to lie down and die by his side would be happiness compared to such a life as mine.
A few days after this, we were all sitting in the drawing-room at about twelve o'clock; the day was not tempting, and instead of going out, we had settled to work, while Sir Edmund and Henry alternately read out loud to us; but Rosa Moore, when she heard the plan proposed, screwed up her lips into a decided expression of disapprobation, and slipt out of the room with the look of a child who has escaped its lesson. Two hours after she came in again, and sat down quietly in a chair opposite me; she looked red and out of breath, but a look of mischief and amusement was sparkling in her eyes. She listened patiently to the conclusion of the tragedy, which Sir Edmund was reading well, though rather too theatrically for the occasion; and when the different remarks upon it had subsided, she turned to Henry, and with perfect gravity, but a most mischievous look in her eyes, said to him, "Mr. Lovell, I am sorry to have to break it to you, but, upon pain of death, we must marry immediately."
"I never dreamt of such an honour," said Henry, laughing; "but if there is no other alternative, I can resign myself. But who lays down this law?"
"A gentleman who shortened my walk this morning, for I had no intention of coming home before the end of the tragedy."
"Who can you mean?"
"Somebody who must be either your best friend or your worst enemy, by the interest he seems to take in you."
"What do you mean?" said Mrs. Brandon.
"Only that as I was exploring the thicket near East Common, I heard a rustling in the hedge, and suddenly stood face to face with an individual of not very prepossessing appearance."
"What kind of man, my love? you frighten me to death."
"Why he was not like a gentleman, nor yet like a countryman; not like anything good in its way. He opened our interview by laying hold of my arm."