“Please put me down; I can walk now,” Lucy pleaded; but Arthur felt the rapid beatings of her heart, and kept her in his arms until they reached Prospect Hill, were Mrs. Meredith was anxiously awaiting their return, her brow clouding with distrust when she saw Mr. Leighton, for she was constantly fearing lest her guilty secret should be exposed.
“I’ll leave Hanover this very week, and remove her from danger,” she thought, as she rose to say good-night.
“Just wait a minute, please. There’s something I want to say to Miss Ruthven,” Lucy cried, and leading Anna to her own room, she knelt down by her side, and looking up in her face, began:
“There’s one question which I wish to ask, and you must answer me truly. It is rude and inquisitive, perhaps, but,—tell me,—has Arthur—ever—ever—”
Anna guessed what was coming, and with a sob, which Lucy thought was a long-drawn breath, she kissed the pretty, parted lips, and answered:
“No, darling, Arthur never did, and never will, but some time he will ask you to be his wife. I can see it coming so plain.”
Poor Anna! her heart gave one great throb as she said this, and then lay like a dead weight in her bosom, while with sparkling eyes and blushing cheeks, Lucy exclaimed:
“I am so glad,—so glad. I have only known you since Sunday, but you seem like an old friend, and you won’t mind my telling you that ever since I first met Arthur among the Alps, I have lived in a kind of ideal world, of which he was the centre. I am an orphan, you know, and an heiress, too. There is half a million, they say; and Uncle Hetherton has charge of it. Now, will you believe me, when I say that I would give every dollar of this for Arthur’s love if I could not have it without?”
“I do believe you,” Anna replied, inexpressibly glad that the gathering darkness hid her white face from view as the childlike, unsuspecting girl went on: “The world, I know, would say that a poor clergyman was not a good match for me, but I do not care for that. Cousin Fanny favors it, I am sure, and Uncle Hetherton would not oppose me when he saw I was in earnest. Once the world, which is a very meddlesome thing, picked out Thornton Hastings, of New York, for me; but my! he was too proud and lofty even to talk to me much, and I would not speak to him after I heard of his saying that ‘I was a pretty little plaything, but far too frivolous for a sensible man to make his wife.’ Oh, wasn’t I angry though, and don’t I hope that when he gets a wife she will be exactly such a frivolous thing as I am.”
Even through the darkness Anna could see the blue eyes flash, and the delicate nostrils dilate as Lucy gave vent to her wrath against the luckless Thornton Hastings.