"Miss Margaret has done so, I allow."
"Miss Margaret! By my conscience, you have got far ben already! And she never found you out? and you have got footing there?"
A pleasurable sense of success soothed the exasperation and pain in the young man's mind.
"It was for that I came here," he said.
"I just guessed as much. I said to my wife, 'He's of the romantic sort; he'll be after little Lilias, take my word for it, as soon as he hears of her existence.' And so you've done it! Well, Mr. Murray, if that's what I am to call you, I congratulate you—that is, if you get clear of Miss Margaret. She's grand at a cross-examination, as I have good reason to know. If you satisfied her——"
"I think I satisfied her—I go there—I was going now, if you had not come," said Lewis, playing with his hat, which was on the table. It seemed to him that to get rid of this visitor was the best, and, indeed, only thing he wished for. "After little Lilias!" The words rang and tingled through his head; he did not wish to be asked any questions, for already he felt as if his countenance must betray him; he could not laugh as his visitor did. It was impossible for him even to respond with a smile. And that fixed gravity was something which had never before been seen on Lewis's face.
Mr. Allenerly cast a curious look upon him, and then he in turn put down his hat upon the table and drew forward a chair.
"You have made your way in what seems a surprising manner," he said, "but you do not seem very cheery about it. You will excuse me if I am pressing—it is a thing I should have been keen to push on, if I had not known that things of this kind must come of themselves; and, if you will pardon me for saying so, I wanted to know more of you before I would have put you in the way of Miss Lilias, poor thing. She is very young, and the first that comes has a great chance with a young girl. But her sisters have very high notions; they are ambitious for her, I have always heard, and whether they would have the sense to see that a bird in the hand is worth two, or any number, in the bush——"
"I cannot let you continue in a mistake," said Lewis, pale and grave. "It is not as you think; the thing is different——"
He paused, and Mr. Allenerly paused too, and looked at him with a doubtful air.