‘It seems as if I had nothing to do with all this,’ said Elly, with trembling lips. ‘Yet I thought it was me you loved, and not anyone else. I thought——’
‘Oh, Elly!’ Mrs. Egerton cried, weeping, ‘don’t you see you are torturing him? Oh, I wish I knew what to do! Elly, don’t you see you are breaking his heart? Come away, and leave him to himself. It is perhaps the kindest thing we can do.’
Elly did not move. She did not cry, though her lips quivered. She stood up straight by his side, as if nothing would ever alter her position.
‘You may go,'she said, ‘Aunt Mary. You are not so very near a relation: but I am not going, not a step. What, just when he wants me? Just when it is some good to have some one to stand by him. I shall not move, not a step. I am in my proper place. Is that all you know of Elly, Jack?’
There had been a faint tapping for some time at the door, which in the excitement and agitation of the little company within had gone on without notice. They were all too much absorbed to be conscious of it, or, if conscious, to think of it as appealing in any way to them. To John it had been a faint additional irritation, a something which penetrated through all the rest like a child crying or a door swinging, nothing that affected himself or made any call upon him. At this point, however, the patience of the applicant outside failed, the door was opened softly, and first a head put in, and then the entire person. It was Mrs. Egerton who first caught sight of this intruder. She dried her eyes hurriedly and looked, with a hasty attempt to recover her composure, at the wistful but still cheerful countenance, with a smile upon it like the smile of a child who has been punished for some fault, but comes back propitiatory, with looks intended to conciliate, and a humble yet not uncomplacent consciousness of being good, and ready to make amends. A child in such a frame of mind is always amiable, and so was, to all appearance, the man who stepped softly in, with his hat in one hand and a bundle of papers in the other. He was scarcely young enough for the pose, or for the look, or the desire to please and to be forgiven, and to make all up again, which was in every line of his face. But to Mrs. Egerton the face was a pleasant one, with a good, innocent expression, which made her feel that this conciliatory personage could not be a very great offender. He made her a little bow when he caught her eye, and seemed to take her into his confidence as he stood there deprecating, smiling. John did not perceive him till he had come into the room, and in the same deprecating manner closed the door behind him. Then he made a step forward, holding out the papers in his hand.
‘Here,’ he said, and the ladies, watching with sudden interest, were startled by the bound John made at the sound of this unexpected voice. ‘Here are your papers—Mr. Sandford.’ He made a little pause before the name. ‘I had no right, I believe, to take them away, but at the moment it did not occur to me in that light. I thought—— ah!—no, no, that is all—nonsense. Don’t think of it any more.’
For John had darted towards him, caught him by the arm, and said ‘Father!’ in the midst of the little speech he was making.
‘No, no,’ he repeated, ‘that is all nonsense. Nothing of the sort, nothing of the sort. Here are your papers, which is the only thing to think of. I have brought you—your papers. That is all. I didn’t intend to disturb you in the midst of your friends.’
He would have slid out again, or at least he made a semblance of wishing to slide out, though in reality his eyes were full of curiosity respecting John’s friends, who on their side gazed at him with an almost ludicrous dismay. This, at least, was the feeling of Mrs. Egerton, who stood with a helpless gasp of incredulity and amazement gazing at this criminal, this untragical, unterrible apparition of whom she had been thinking a moment before with horror in which no mitigating circumstance had any part.
‘I did not think,’ said the culprit, with his deprecating look, ‘that you would have been at home at this hour. I thought I would find the room empty when I got here. I had these back from Spender & Diggs last night. I intended only to leave them—not to disturb you among your friends.’