A minute or two passed. Then the man appeared again.
“I am sorry, ma’am,” he began, apologetically, “but particularly obliged by your sending my master your name. He is so much engaged to-day—would like to understand if it is anything very particular, and—” He hesitated, not liking to repeat his own suggestion to Mr Cheviott that very likely the young lady was collecting for the foreign missions, or a school treat, and might just as well as not send her message by him.
“It is something particular,” said Mary, chafing inwardly not a little at the difficulty of obtaining an audience of Mr Cheviott—“as if he were a royal personage almost,” she said to herself. “You can tell Mr Cheviott that the business on which I wish to see him is something particular; and my name is Miss Western.”
Again the envoy disappeared. Again the murmuring voices through the door, then a hasty sound as of some one pushing back a chair in impatience, and in another moment the door between the rooms opened, and some one came into the library. Not the man-servant this time, nor did he, lingering behind his master in the study in hopes of quenching his curiosity, obtain much satisfaction, for Mr Cheviott, advancing but one step into the library, and catching sight of its occupant, turned sharply and closed the door in the man’s face before giving any sign of recognition of his visitor—before, in fact, seeming to have perceived her at all. Then he came forward slowly.
Mary was still standing; as Mr Cheviott came nearer her, she bowed slightly, and began at once to speak.
“I can hardly expect you to recognise me,” she said, calmly. “I am Miss Western, the second Miss Western, from Hathercourt.”
Mr Cheviott bowed.
“I had the pleasure of being intro—I had the honour of meeting you at one of the Brocklehurst balls,” he said, inquiringly.
“Yes,” said Mary, “and once before—at Hathercourt Church one Sunday when you and your friends came over to the morning service. Before that day I do not think I ever heard your name, and yet I have come to your house to-day to say to you what it would be hard to say to an old friend—to ask you to listen while I try to make you see that you have been interfering unwarrantably in other people’s affairs; that what you have done is a cruel and bad thing, a thing you may sorely repent, that I believe you will repent, Mr Cheviott, if you are not already doing so?”
She raised her voice slightly to a tone of inquiry as she stopped, and, for the first time, looked up, straight into Mr Cheviott’s face. She had been speaking in a low tone, but with great distinctness and without hurry, yet when she left off it seemed as if her breath had failed her, as if her intense nervous resolution could carry her no further. Now she waited anxiously to see the effect of her words; she had determined beforehand to plunge at once, without preamble, into what she had to say, yet even now she was dissatisfied with what she had done. It seemed to her that she had made her appeal in an exaggerated and theatrical fashion; she wished she had waited for Mr Cheviott to speak first.