"I did. It is the most unpleasant piece of business I was ever mixed up in."
"Mildred will only treat it as a joke, of course?"
"Mildred treated it in earnest. Why should she not? When she came here last evening, she came expecting that she would shortly be your wife."
They stood looking at each other, the mother and son, their thoughts travelling back to the past night, and its events. What had appeared so strange in William's eyes was becoming clear; the cross-purposes, as Mildred had expressed it, in their conversation with each other, and Mildred's fainting-fit, when the elucidation came. He very much feared, now that he knew the cause of that fainting-fit—he feared that Mildred's love was his.
Mrs. Arkell's thoughts were taking the same course, and she spoke them:—"William, that fainting-fit must in some way have been connected with this. Mildred is not in the habit of fainting."
He made no reply at first. Loving Mildred excessively as a cousin, he would not have hurt her feelings willingly for the whole world. A half-wish stole over him that it was the fashion for gentlemen to cut themselves in half when two ladies were in the case, and so gallantly bestow themselves on both. Mrs. Arkell noted the mortification in his expressive face.
"What is to be done, William? Mrs. Dan told me she felt sure Mildred had been secretly attached to you for years."
Mrs. Arkell might not have spoken thus openly to her son, but for a hope, now beginning to dawn within her—that his choice might yet fall upon Mildred. William made no reply. He smoothed his hand over his troubled brow; he recalled more and more of the previous evening's scene; he felt deeply perplexed and concerned, for the happiness of Mildred was dear to him as a sister's. But the more he reflected on the case, the less chance he saw of mending it.
"You must marry Mildred," Mrs. Arkell said to him in a low tone.
"Impossible!" he hastily rejoined; "I cannot do that."