Which made the first movement neither knew. "My dearest little girl!" he murmured, and folded her in his arms.
Bluebell was weak and silent from surprise mingled with extreme happiness, and Lord Bromley had gone back in thought to former years, and dare not trust himself to speak; so they were both too absorbed to notice the entrance of Harry Dutton, who remained rooted to the spot (like a stuck pig, as he afterwards elegantly described it), and a smothered exclamation burst from his lips.
Lord Bromley hurriedly withdrew himself from Bluebell, not particularly gratified at being surprized in so romantic a pose at his time of life.
"What the d——l are you doing here, sir?" he angrily demanded.
Harry, considering he had quite as good a right to ask that question, turned inquiringly and gloomily to Bluebell, who, feeling if she attempted to open her lips she must either go off into a hysterical fit of laughter or burst into tears, said nothing; and the uncle and nephew continued to glare at each other.
She signed to Dutton to speak; but he was too mystified and sulky; so Bluebell, in desperation, plunged in medias res.
"Harry!" she cried, "this is my grandfather as well as your uncle! Why, we must be cousins!" Then, after an instant's pause, with downcast eyes and crimson cheeks, she penitently kissed the old man's hand, and whispered,—"He is my husband too; we meant to have told you to-morrow!"
So the dread secret was out at last! Silence, that could be felt, ensued, and seemed endless to the two culprits, who, with drooping eyes, waited anxiously for him to speak.
Now, this announcement was hardly so unexpected as they supposed, and far more welcome than their wildest dreams could have anticipated. Lord Bromley's agent, who paid the annuity to Mrs. Leigh, was also in the habit of giving him periodical information of the well-being of his grand-daughter. When, however, she eloped from Captain Davidson's house, he had lost sight of her for a time, but afterwards picked up the clue at Mrs. Markham's. When they also disappeared so suddenly, the agent was again at fault, Bluebell having changed her situation in the interval.
Advancing years had softened Lord Bromley. The tidings of her elopement without any positive proof of a bona fide marriage preceding it, had shocked him into bitter remorse for having left her, an unprotected waif and stray, to the tender mercies of the world, and now she had passed out of his ken, and he could not but fear the worst.