"How do you do, Mr. Burke? I have heard of you in my husband's letters. Is the dear man well?"
"He is in good health, ma'am, but somewhat anxious to have you back again."
"Dear man! What is he anxious about? Mr. Watts seemed anxious also to get rid of us. He was vexed that Mrs. Watts is too much indisposed to accompany us. And Mr. Warren Hastings, who was to escort us, was quite angry because he had to go to one of the out-factories instead. I do not understand why these gentlemen are so much disturbed."
Desmond saw that Mrs. Merriman had been deliberately kept in ignorance of the grounds of the Englishmen's anxiety, and was seeking on the spur of the moment for a means to divert her from the subject, when he was spared the necessity. Miss Merriman had been looking at him curiously, and she now turned to her mother and said something in a tone inaudible to Desmond.
"La! you don't say so, my dear," exclaimed the lady.
"Why. Mr. Burke, my daughter tells me that we have met you before."
His vague recollection of Mrs. Merriman's voice being thus so suddenly confirmed, he recalled, as from a far distant past, a scene upon Hounslow Heath; a coach that stood perilously near the ditch, a girl at the horses' heads, a lady stamping her foot at two servants wrestling in drunken stupidity on the ground.
"You never gave us an opportunity of thanking you," continued Mrs. Merriman. "'Twas not kind of you, Mr. Burke, to slip away thus without a word after doing two poor lone women such a service."
"Indeed, ma'am, 'twas with no discourteous intention, but seeing you were safe with your friends I--I--in short, ma'am--"
Desmond stopped in confusion, at a loss for a satisfactory explanation. The ladies were smiling.