About her there was an originality which struck him. She was unlike any other girl he had seen; she had a freshness and depth of thought which delighted as much as her beauty bewildered him; and he must have loved her as a cousin if he had not loved her as something more.
And now she and Ellinor had gone—fled, as it were—to London in a kind of desperation and sorrow, brought about by his own folly and mismanagement—to London, of all places in the world for girls ignorant of it—beautiful, helpless, and poor!
'But they will soon discover the trick we have played them, Dr. Wodrow,' said Colville, looking up after a silent pause.
'How?'
'If they look in the Army List they will see that there is only one Wellwood in the Guards—myself, Leslie Wellwood Colville.'
'That is where they will never think of looking,' replied Dr. Wodrow; and he was right—the sisters never did; besides, Army Lists were seldom in their way.
'Had that confounded old gossip, Mrs. Wodrow, not come in at the time she did all would have been explained—I was on the point of telling my darling all!' thought Colville, bitterly and angrily; 'all would have been so different now, and I should have won the confidence, as I had evidently won the love of Mary Wellwood. And now to follow and to find her!'
'Where?' asked Dr. Wodrow, pithily and sharply.
'True—true; I must be patient, and wait for tidings through you,' said Colville, with something like a groan. 'By the by, doctor, your son seems cut up about the departure of my cousins.'
'No wonder, poor fellow—since boyhood Miss Ellinor was the apple of his eye.'