"I am surprised he can bear you out of his sight," exclaimed Wilton, warmly, and checked himself; but she only noticed his words.
"He does not like me to be away. I am often imprisoned for weeks. Last August I grew weak and languid; so Lady Fergusson gave me a holiday. I had nowhere to go but to Mrs. Kershaw's; then she was taken ill—a bad fever—so I nursed her, thankful to be of use. Then Donald summoned me back, and"—turning with the peculiar air of gracious acknowledgment which Wilton had before noticed, she added—"it was on my journey back I met you. Oh, how weary I was! I had been awake night after night. I was stupefied with fatigue, and you were so good. Could Death then have come to me in sleep, I should have held out my arms to him. Yet you see I was terrified at the idea of being hurt or torn when the train was overset."
"You behaved like—like an angel, or rather like a true, high-souled woman."
She laughed softly, and rising, attempted to walk to the window.
"Ah!" she exclaimed, "I forgot my shoes;" then, resuming her seat, went on: "There, I have told you all my life. Why, I cannot say; but, if I have wearied you, it is your own fault. You listened as if you cared to hear, while to me it has been sad, yet sweet, to recall the past, to talk of my father to one who will not mock at his opinions—his dreams, if you will. But, ah! what dreams! what hopes! Thank God! he lived to know of Garibaldi's triumph—to see the papal throne tremble at the upheaval of Italy! These glimpses of light gladdened him at the last; for never was Christian martyr upheld by faith in a future world more steadfastly than my father by his belief in the political regeneration of this one. Yet I have, perhaps, forgotten myself in speaking so much."
She turned toward Wilton as she spoke, and, placing her elbow on the arm of the chair, rested her chin in the palm of her hand, looking at him with the large, deep-blue eyes which had so struck him at first, her long lashes wet with tear drops, of which she was unconscious.
"At least," said Wilton, "you must feel that no speaker ever riveted attention more than you have. As for the accuracy of the opinions so disinterestedly upheld, I neither combat nor assent to them. I can only think of you—so young, so alone?"
It is impossible to say how much passionate sympathy he was about to express, when a sudden change in Ella Rivers's face made him stop and turn round. To his infinite annoyance there stood Major Moncrief, with the door in his hand, and an expression of utter blank astonishment on his countenance, his coat covered with fast-melting snow, and evidently just dismounted.
"Hallo, Moncrief!" cried Wilton, his every-day, sharp senses recalled in a moment by this sudden, unwelcome apparition. "Wet to the skin, I suppose, like Miss Rivers"—a wave of the hand toward her—"and myself. I most fortunately overtook her half-way from Monkscleugh, and brought her here for shelter."
"Oh!" ejaculated Moncrief: it sounded like a groan.