"She is absolutely in earnest, and she trusts to you to respect her wishes. Consider what a short time you have known her——"
His words fell upon heedless ears. Before he had finished speaking Lorin darted from the room. In a very few seconds he was down the stairs, out of the house, and in a hansom on his way to 21, St. Mary's Crescent.
Only one idea filled his brain—he must see Lina, must never leave her until she had sworn to be his as soon as the Church could marry them. To-morrow he would buy a special licence, and, that bought, she must instantly become his wife, so that no more deadly torturing fears of losing her could harass him.
Twice he shouted to the driver to go faster; and a block in the thoroughfare at the top of Sloane Street threw him into a fever of nervous impatience. The hideous supposition that she might be induced to jilt him for his cousin rose more than once in his mind, to be angrily dismissed again. She must be merely wishing to try him out of girlish coquetry, for which she should be punished by being married, trousseau or no trousseau, within the next twenty-four hours. Of that he was fully determined.
"I am too jealous to be an engaged man," he told himself. "Lina must be mine altogether, and I must take her away with me. I know she loves me. What could possibly come between us? It must be some girlish freak on her part. But I am glad I have to see her, for I am starving for a kiss! I must see her alone, and will kiss away from her lips the memory of her coldness to-day. What a confoundedly slow cab this is! I could walk the distance in half the time!"
At St. Mary's Crescent bad news awaited him. Susan, who showed him into the morning-room on the ground-floor, and took his name up-stairs to Miss Grahame, returned to tell him that that young lady could not receive him. She was suffering from a bad headache, and had gone to bed.
"Gone to bed? It isn't six o'clock yet! Is she really ill, Susan?"
"Yes, sir."
Lorin looked doubtfully at Susan; then he drew a sovereign from his pocket and laid it in her hand. While she was feebly affecting to return it, he closed her hand upon it, and spoke in low quick tones in her ear.
"Susan, have you a sweetheart?"