“Thanks for saying so,” he said, with a smile, kissing her hand. He thought she meant that as she was so surely his, it was naturally his part to think for her and help her in everything. What so natural? And then he awaited her disclosure, still smiling, expecting some innocent dilemma, such as would be in keeping with her innocent looks. He could not understand her, nor the gravity of the appeal to him which she had come to make.
“Oh, Mr. Incledon!” cried Rose, “if you knew what I meant, you would not smile—you would not take it so easily. I have come to tell you everything—how I have lied to you and been a cheat and a deceiver. Oh! don’t laugh! you don’t know—you don’t know how serious it is!”
“Nay, dear child,” he said, “do you want to frighten me? for if you do, you must think of something more likely than that you are a cheat and deceiver. Come now, I will be serious—as serious as a judge. Tell me what it is, Rose.”
“It is about you and me,” she said suddenly, after a little pause.
“Ah!”—this startled him for the first time. His grasp tightened upon her hand; but he used no more endearing words. “Go on,” he said, softly.
“May I begin at the beginning? I should like to tell you everything. When you first spoke to me, Mr. Incledon, I told you there was some one”—
“Ah!” cried Mr. Incledon again, still more sharply, “he is here now. You have seen him since he came back?”
“It is not that,” said Rose. “Oh! let me tell you from the beginning. I said then that he had never said anything to me. I could not tell you his name because I did not know what his feelings were—only my own, of which I was ashamed. Mr. Incledon, have patience with me a little. Just before he went away he came to the rectory to say good-by. He sent up a message to ask me to come down, but mamma went down instead. Then his mother sent me a little note, begging me to go to bid him good-by. It was while papa was ill; he held my hand, and would not let me. I begged him, only for a minute; but he held my hand and would not let me go. I had to sit there and listen, and hear the door open and shut, and then steps in the hall and on the gravel, and then mamma coming slowly back again, as if nothing had happened, up-stairs and along the corridor. Oh! I thought she was walking on my heart!”
Rose’s eyes were so full that she did not see how her listener looked. He held her hand still, but with his disengaged hand he partially covered his face.
“Then after that,” she resumed, pausing for breath, “all our trouble came. I did not seem to care for anything. It is dreadful to say it—and I never did say it till now—but I don’t think I felt so unhappy as I ought about poor papa; I was so unhappy before. It did not break my heart as grief ought to do. I was only dull—dull—miserable, and did not care for anything; but then everybody was unhappy; and there was good reason for it, and no one thought of me. It went on like that till you came.”