After groping about for some time, we failed to find the parasol.
“Some of the servants may have taken it into the house?” she said. “No matter. I suppose it will turn up along with my hat and cloak.”
We were about returning to the open lawn, when we saw coming, through the same break in the branches under which we had entered, a pair of promenaders like ourselves. Their errand we could not guess. Though ours had been innocent enough, it occurred to me that it might have a compromising appearance.
I cannot tell if my companion had the same thought; but, whether or no, we stood still, as if by a mutual instinct, waiting for the other pair to pass out again. We supposed they had stepped under the tree actuated by curiosity, or some other caprice that would soon be satisfied.
In this we were mistaken. Instead of immediately returning into the light, faint as it was, and only springing from the glimmer of a starlit sky, they stopped and entered into a conversation that promised to be somewhat protracted. At the first words, I could tell it was only the resumption of one that had already made some progress between them.
“I know,” said the gentleman, “that you still bear him in your mind. It’s no use telling me you never cared for him. I know better than that, Miss Mainwaring.”
“Indeed, do you? What a wonderful knowledge you have, Mr Nigel Harding! You know more than I ever did myself, and more than your brother, did too; else why should I have refused him. Surely that might convince you there was nothing between us—at least, on my side there wasn’t.”
There was a short pause, as if the suitor was reflecting on what the lady had just said. My companion and I were puzzled as to what we should do. I knew it by the trembling of her arm, that spoke irresolution. By a similar sign I felt that we were agreed upon keeping silent, and hearing this strange dialogue to its termination. We had already heard enough to make discovering ourselves exceedingly awkward—to say nothing of our own compromising position. We kept our place then, standing still like a couple of linked statues.
“If that be true,” rejoined Nigel Harding, who appeared to have brought his reasoning process to a satisfactory conclusion, “and if also true that no other has your heart, may I ask, Miss Mainwaring, why you do not accept the offer I have laid before you? You have told me—I think you have said as much—that you could like me for a husband. Why not go farther, and say you will have me?”
“Because—because—Mr Nigel Harding,—do you really wish to know the reason?”