‘I am sorry you are obliged to leave so soon,’ said Laura, anxious to say something vaguely civil.
‘I should go away more happy than I can tell you if I thought my going could make you sorry.’
‘Oh, I did not mean in such a particular sense,’ she said, with a little laugh. ‘I am sorry for your own sake that you have to leave the country, just when it is so lovely, and to go back to smoky London.’
‘If you knew how I hate that world of smoke and all foul things, you would pity me with the uttermost compassion your kind heart can feel,’ he answered, very much in earnest. ‘I am going from all I love to all I detest; and I know not how long it may be before I can return; but if I should be able to come quickly will you promise me a kindly welcome, Laura? Will you promise to be as glad of my return as I am sorry to go to-night.’
‘I cannot make any such bargain,’ she said gently, ‘for I cannot measure your sadness to-night. You are altogether a mysterious person; I have not even begun to understand you. But I hope you may come back soon, when our roses are in bloom and our nightingales are singing, and if their welcome is not enough for you I will promise to add mine.’
There was a tender playfulness in her tone which was unspeakably sweet to him. They were quite alone, in a part of the carriage-drive where the trees grew thickest, the shadow of chestnut leaves folding them round, the low breath of the evening wind whispering in their ears. It was an hour for tender avowals, for unworldly thoughts.
John Treverton took Laura’s hand, and held it unreproved.
‘Tell me that you do not hate the memory of my cousin Jasper because of that absurd will,’ he said.
‘Could I hate the memory of one who was so good to me, the only father I ever knew?’
‘Say then that you do not hate me because of my cousin’s will.’