“A moment,” interrupted the counsel. “Was your visit that evening made in secret?”
“Partially so. My father and mother were displeased, naturally, at my intimacy with Afy Hallijohn; therefore I did not care that they should be cognizant of my visits there. I am ashamed to confess that I told my father a lie over it that very evening. He saw me leave the dinner-table to go out with my gun, and inquired where I was off to. I answered that I was going out with young Beauchamp.”
“When, in point of fact, you were not?”
“No. I took my gun, for I had promised to lend it to Hallijohn while his own was being repaired. When I reached the cottage Afy refused to admit me; she was busy, and could not, she said. I felt sure she had got Thorn with her. She had, more than once before, refused to admit me when I had gone there by her own appointment, and I always found that Thorn’s presence in the cottage was the obstacle.”
“I suppose you and Thorn were jealous of each other?”
“I was jealous of him; I freely admit it. I don’t know whether he was of me.”
“May I inquire what was the nature of your friendship for Miss Afy Hallijohn?”
“I loved her with an honorable love, as I might have done by any young lady in my own station of life. I would not have married her in opposition to my father and mother; but I told Afy that if she was content to wait for me until I was my own master I would then make her my wife.”
“You had no views toward her of a different nature?”
“None; I cared for her too much for that; and I respected her father. Afy’s mother had been a lady, too, although she had married Hallijohn, who was but clerk to Mr. Carlyle. No; I never had a thought of wrong toward Afy—I never could have had.”