“Oh, I forgot that; I’ll go back,” said Luke.
“Do; I should like to hear it all from your own lips, Luke.”
And the bailiff returned just in time to hear the various clauses read.
When he was gone, Arthur Phillips came back again to the bailiff’s house, determined to learn why he had so suddenly filled himself with hopes that excited him beyond description. He would not be content with vague hints and proverbial sayings, and he would not conceal his own feelings with regard to Miss Tallant. Mrs. Somerton could evidently help him in some way or another; she knew more than she chose to tell; she knew what he ought to know, and he would endeavour to learn what she did know.
Mrs. Somerton did not need much persuasion to reveal her secret. She knew that in a few hours Arthur would know it, and it was a satisfactory sort of penance to tell him herself, and to confess all her plotting and meannesses; to disclose to him her feelings with regard to herself; to show how jealous she was of her daughter; and to point some of her moral aphorisms with illustrations from this last phase of the failure of her schemes.
It was indeed a new light this to Arthur. He had dreamed of all sorts of contingencies which might bring Phœbe nearer to him, and his only hope was in the production of some great work that should open up a golden vista which the merchant might comprehend; for Arthur had always regarded Mr. Tallant as the wealthy commoner who gauged men and things by money, and this had disheartened him even more than the thoughts of his own shortcomings and the beauty of her whom he had been rash enough to go on loving without daring even to hint at his passion.
And now fate had decreed that this difficulty should disappear. Did he blame Phœbe’s mother? No. He sat before her stupified with amazement.
His first thought, now that the great barrier of all was cleared away, was of his own unworthiness; but he had courage enough to tell Mrs. Somerton that she had excited hopes which had never before dared to mount so high. He had heard her story with the greatest surprise, and, but that his own heart hoped and desired its truth, it was almost too extraordinary for belief.
Supposing he dared to hope that Phœbe loved him, had he her mother’s consent to ask her the question?