“Will you pardon my intrusion at this hour?” he asked, taking her hand, and bending towards her with his sweet smile. “It is later than I thought it was”—in truth, ten was striking that moment from the hall clock. “I was concerned to hear of Mr. Godolphin’s illness, and wished to ascertain how he was, before returning to Prior’s Ash.”
“He has kept his room this evening,” replied Cecil. “My sister is sitting with him. I do not think it is anything serious. But he has not appeared very well of late.”
“Indeed I trust it is nothing serious,” warmly responded Lord Averil.
Cecil fell into silence. She supposed they had told Janet of the visit, and that she would be coming in. Lord Averil went to the window.
“The same charming scene!” he exclaimed. “I think the moonlight view from this window most beautiful. The dark trees, and the white walls of Lady Godolphin’s Folly, rising there, remain on my memory as a painted scene.”
He folded his arms and stood there, gazing still. Cecil stole a look up at him: at his pale, attractive face, with its expression of care. She had wondered once why that look of care should be conspicuous there; but not after she became acquainted with his domestic history.
“Have you returned to England to remain, Lord Averil?”
The question awoke him from his reverie. He turned to Cecil, and a sudden impulse prompted him to stake his fate on the die of the moment. It was not a lucky throw.
“I would remain if I could induce one to share my name and home. Forgive me, Cecil, if I anger you by thus hastily speaking. Will you forget the past, and help me to forget it?—will you let me make you my dear wife?”
In saying “Will you forget the past,” Lord Averil had alluded to his first marriage. In his extreme sensitiveness upon that point, he doubted whether Cecil might not object to succeed the dead Lady Averil: he believed those hasty and ill-natured words, reported to him as having been spoken by her, bore upon that sore point alone. Cecil, on the contrary, assumed that her forgetfulness was asked for his own behaviour to her, in so far as that he had gone away and left her without word or explanation. She grew quite pale with anger. Lord Averil resumed, his manner earnest, his voice low and tender.