“Thanks all the same, no; I shall walk fast, I don’t feel cold—and I should only have the trouble of bringing it back to-morrow afternoon. I’ll be here by three o’clock. Good-night, Harriet.”
“Good-night, Lizzie. Go round to that path that branches off from our front-gate; keep straight on, and you can’t miss the way.”
I had heard it all; every syllable; unable to help it. The least rustle of the laurels might have betrayed me. Betrayed me to Lizzie.
What a calamity! She did not appear to have come down after Roger, did not appear to know that he was connected with Lady Bevere—or that the names were the same. But at the tea-table the following evening she would inevitably learn all. Servants talk of their masters and their doings. And to hear Roger’s name would be ruin.
I found Roger in his chamber. “Uncle Brandon was putting inconvenient questions to me,” he said, “so I got away under pretence of looking at the weather. How cold you look, Johnny!”
“I am cold. I went into the garden, looking for you, and I had a fright there.”
“Seen a ghost?” returned he, lightly.
“Something worse than a ghost. Roger, I have some disagreeable news for you.”
“Eh?—what?” he cried, his fears leaping up: indeed they were very seldom down. “They don’t suspect anything, do they? What is it? Why do you beat about the bush?”
“I should like to prepare you. If——”