Sir Francis then summoned an attendant, and desired that Ada might be requested to come to him as soon as possible. The message was duly delivered, and in a few moments our heroine, to whose fortunes we have clung so long, and who holds so large a place in our hearts, glided like a spirit of beauty into the magistrate’s study.
Sir Francis Hartleton, when he had offered her a seat, looked with kindly interest in her face, and said—
“Ada; you look unhappy; you are paler than you were.”
A slight increase of colour visited Ada’s cheek, as she replied in her sweet, low musical voice,—
“I am all unused to cloak my feelings either of joy or of sorrow; I am not happy. I have told myself often that I am most ungrateful to you for your great kindness to me, by being unhappy; but the heart will not be reasoned with, and the subtlest logic of the mind will fail to stop a tear from dimming the eye, when the full heart says ‘weep.’”
“You are full of regret, Ada, that I think harshly of young Albert Seyton.”
“I am, I am,” said Ada. “Oh, sir! You do not know him as I know him, or you would seek some other cause for his conduct than faithlessness.”
“Hear me, Ada,” added Sir Francis with emotion. “Since I last saw you, I have had occasion to alter my opinion.”
A half suppressed cry of joy escaped the lips of Ada, and then she clasped her hands; and while the rapid beating of her heart testified to the emotion occasioned by Sir Francis’s words, she fixed upon his face her beautiful eloquent eyes, and eagerly dwelt on every word he uttered.
“Believe me, Ada,” he said, “my deep concern for your happiness alone made me anxious that he who was to make or mar your happiness in this world should be proved pure as virgin gold, ere with joy I could see you become his. I have tested him.”