"Not at this hour. I have detained you, and am bound to see you safely lodged."
"But if papa should hear——"
"He shall near nothing. I'll leave you within a few yards of his gate."
It was no use for her to protest; so they went back to within half a dozen paces of Mill Cottage arm-in-arm; not talking very much, but dangerously happy in each other's company.
"I shall see you again very soon, Clarissa," George Fairfax said. And then he asked her to tell him her favourite walks; but this she refused to do.
"No matter. I shall find you out in spite of your obstinacy. And remember, child, you owe nothing to Laura Armstrong except the sort of kindness she would show to any pretty girl of good family. You are as necessary to her as the orchids on her dinner-table. I don't deny that she is a warm-hearted little woman, with a great deal that is good in her—just the sort of woman to dispense a large fortune. But I shall make matters all right in that quarter, and at once."
They were now as near Mill Cottage as Mr. Fairfax considered it prudent to go. He stopped, released Clarissa's hand from his arm, only to lift it to his lips and kiss it—the tremulous little ungloved hand which had been sketching his profile when he surprised her, half an hour before, on the churchyard wall.
There was not a creature on the road before them, as they stood thus in the moonlight; but in spite of this appearance of security, they were not unobserved. A pair of angry eyes watched them from across a clipped holly hedge in front of the cottage—the eyes of Marmaduke Lovel, who had ventured out in the soft September night to smoke his after-dinner cigar.
"Good-night, Clarissa," said George Fairfax; "I shall see you again very soon."
"No, no; I don't wish to see you. No good can come of our seeing each other."