He took out his watch and showed it to her. There was plenty of time to spare.
"Have you to keep these appointments often?"
"I never kept but the one you know of. I hope--I am not sure--but I hope that the one today will be all I shall have to keep. It is a singular chance--that you should meet me on both days!"
"I don't think anything in the world happens by chance," gravely observed Oswald. "Do you recollect the interview I had with you at your house, just after your father's death?" he resumed, after a pause.
Sara turned her face to him in her surprise. "O yes."
"And do you remember," he continued, his voice assuming its sincerest and tenderest tone, "what I said at that interview?--That nothing would give me so much pleasure as to be your friend, should you require one. Sara--forgive me if I go back for a moment to our old familiar forms of speech--let me prove myself one now!"
"In what manner?" she asked, after some moments of hesitation.
"If I am able to understand anything of this business you need one. You seem to stand alone in it; no one to counsel you, no one to help."
"It is true," she said, "I have to stand in it alone. I must stand in it alone."
"Suffer me to be, so far, your friend."