"And I so wish you would tell her that I have been ever since thinking how I can be of any real use—ever so little—if only to prove my anxiety to make her trust me even a little."
"I think, Mr. Verney, it is quite enough if we don't distrust you; and I can assure you we do not," said the spinster.
"My uncle, though not the sort of man you may have been led to suppose him—not at all an unkind man—is, I must allow, a little odd and difficult sometimes—you see I'm not speaking to you as a stranger—and he won't do things in a moment; still if I knew exactly what Sir Booth expected from him—if you think I might venture to ask an interview——"
"Quite impossible! You must not think of it," exclaimed the lady with a look almost of terror, "just now, while all is so fresh, and feelings so excited, he's in no mood to be reasonable, and no good could come of it."
"Well, you know best, of course. But I expect to be called away, my stay at Ware can't be much longer. My uncle writes as if he wants me; and I wish so much, short as it is, that I could improve it to any useful purpose. I can't tell you how very much I pity Miss Fanshawe, immured in that gloomiest of all gloomy places. Such an unnatural and terrifying seclusion for one so very young."
"It is certainly very triste," said Miss Sheckleton.
"She draws, you told me, and likes the garden, and reads; you must allow me to lend you some books, won't you? you I say; and you can lend them to her," he added, seeing a hesitation, "and you need take no trouble about returning them. Just lock them up anywhere in the house when you've done with them, and I'll get them when you leave Malory, which I hope won't be for a long time, unless it be for a very much pleasanter residence."
Here came a pause; the eyes of the two pedestrians were directed toward Malory as they descended the road, but no sign of life was visible in that quarter.
"You got home very well that day from the Priory; I watched you all the way," said he at last.
"Oh! yes; the distance is nothing."