If there must be an interview at this highly indiscreet hour of the night it should at least be open and above-board, conducted in tones which the entire household could, if it chose, hear plainly enough. Both for his own honor and Joanna's this was best.
"I have just come back from Heatherleigh," he continued. "You will be glad to know that Mr. Challoner and I have finished the business connected with your father's property. All outstanding accounts and all duties upon the estate are now paid. All documents are signed, receipted, and in order."
Joanna made an impatient gesture as though thrusting aside some foolish obstruction.
"Yes," she said, "no doubt; but it is not about the property I need to speak to you, Adrian. My mind is quite at ease about that. It is about something else. It is about myself."
"Ah, yes?" the young man inquired, gravely.
"I did not come down to dinner to-night. I felt sure you would understand and excuse me. I could not. I could not have borne to be with Margaret and Marion Chase and to listen to their trivial talk in your presence, after our conversation of this afternoon. I had to be alone that I might think, that I might bring my temper into subjection to my will. Isherwood told me you had gone out after dinner. But I felt I could not rest without seeing you again to-night. I felt I must speak to you, must ask your forgiveness, must try to explain. So I waited up. The owls startled me, and I went on to the balcony. I fancied you were in the garden. But I could not see you. Later I heard your footsteps"—Joanna paused breathlessly—"your footsteps," she repeated, "upon the pavement of the veranda. My courage failed. I felt ashamed to meet you. But it would be so very dreadful to have you think harshly of me—so, so I came."
Owing to the vague quality of the light Adrian failed to see her face distinctly, and for this he was thankful. But he knew that her arms hung straight at her sides, and that, under cover of her costly cloak, her poor hands clutched and clutched against the white knife-pleatings of her dress.
"Dear cousin," he said, "I have no cause to think harshly of you. Indeed, my thought has been occupied with sympathy for the trials that you have already undergone, and with regret that I should be instrumental in recalling distressing events to your mind."
"Ah! I deserve no sympathy," she declared, vehemently, turning aside and moving restlessly to and fro. "I do not deserve that excuses should be made for me. This afternoon I showed my character in a shocking light. Perhaps it was the true light. Perhaps my character is objectionable. I both felt and said what was cruel and intemperate. I was selfish. I only considered my own happiness. I repudiated my duty toward my brother. I wished him dead, because his return, and all the anxiety and thought the probability of that return necessarily occasions, interfered with my own plans, with my own beautiful prospects and hopes."
She came close, standing before the young man, her hands clasped, her body visibly shuddering beneath her hieratic garments.