Lottie, however, was in a passion of alarm, which drove everything else out of her head. Of all things that seemed to her most to be avoided, a meeting between her father and Rollo at this crisis was the worst. She left her room no more that evening, but sat and pondered what she could do to avert the danger. True, without a meeting between them it would be impossible that her love should have its legitimate sanction, and that the beginning of her new life should be honest and straightforward, as it ought. But partly because she had schooled herself to think (by way of excusing Rollo’s silence) that a meeting between him and her father would only make him less respectful of the Captain’s pretensions and the “family” which Lottie still with forlorn faith believed in, and partly because the visit of a father to ask a lover’s “intentions” was perhaps the very last way in which a beginning of intercourse could be agreeably established, it seemed to Lottie that she would do anything in the world to prevent this meeting. With this view she wrote one little note and then another to warn Rollo—writing with cold fingers but a beating heart, hot with anxiety and trouble, upon the corner of her little dressing-table—for there was no room for any other convenience of a table in the small, old-fashioned chamber. But when she had at last achieved a composition of one which seemed to express feebly yet sufficiently what she wanted to say, the question arose, How was it to get to Rollo? She had no one to send. She dared not trust it to Law, for that would involve an explanation, and there was no one else at Lottie’s command. A thought of Captain Temple floated across her mind; but how could she employ him upon such an errand, which would involve a still more difficult explanation? At last she burnt regretfully by the flame of her candle the very last of these effusions, and decided that she must trust to the chances of the morrow. She had promised to be at the elm-tree in the morning to bid Rollo good-by. She must manage, then, to get him to go away before matins were over and her father free. But it was with an anxious heart that Lottie, when her candle burned out, crept cold and troubled to bed, chilled to the bone, yet with a brow which burned and throbbed with excitement. Law did not come in till after she had fallen asleep. Law, whom she had watched over so anxiously, was, at this crisis of Lottie’s personal history and his own, left entirely to himself.
In the morning she managed to run out immediately after breakfast, just as the air began to vibrate with the Abbey bells, and, after some anxious waiting under the elm, at last, to her great relief, saw Rollo coming. Lottie was not able to disguise her anxiety or her desire for his departure. “Never mind speaking to me,” she said. “Do not waste time. Oh, Rollo, forgive me—no, it is not to get rid of you,” she cried, and then she told him the incident of last night.
Rollo’s eyes gave forth a gleam of disgust when he heard of the chance of being stopped by Captain Despard to enquire his “intentions.” He laughed, and Lottie thought instinctively that this was a sound of merriment which she would never wish to hear again. But his face brightened as he turned to Lottie, who was so anxious to save him from this ordeal. “My faithful Lottie!” he said, pressing her close to him. There was nobody stirring in the winterly morning; but yet day requires more reserve than the early darkness of night.
“But go, go, Rollo. I want you to be gone before they are out of the Abbey,” she cried, breathless.
“My dear love—my only love,” he said, holding both her hands in his.
“Oh, Rollo, is it not only for a day or two? You are so serious, you frighten me—but go, go, that you may not meet anyone,” she said.
“Yes, it is only for a day or two, my darling,” he replied. “On Friday, my Lottie, at five under this tree. You won’t fail me?”
“Never,” she said, with her blue eyes full of sweet tears. And then they kissed in the eye of day, all the silent world looking on.
“No,” he said, with fervour—“never; you will never fail me; you will always be true.”
And so they parted, she watching jealously while he took his way, not by the common road, but down the windings of the Slopes, that he might be safe, that no one might annoy him. “Till Friday!” he called to her in the silence, waving his hand as he turned the corner out of her sight. She drew a long breath of relief when she saw him emerge alone farther down upon the road that led to the railway. The Signor was only then beginning the voluntary, and Captain Despard evidently could not ask Rollo Ridsdale his “intentions” that day. Lottie waved her hand to her lover, though he was too far off to see her, and said to herself, “Till Friday,” with a sudden realisation all of these words implied—another life, a new heaven and a new earth; love, and tenderness, and worship instead of the careless use and wont of the family; to be first instead of last; to be happy and at rest instead of tormented at everybody’s caprice; to be with Rollo, who loved her, always, for ever and ever, with no more risk of losing him or being forgotten. Her heart overflowed with sweetness, her eyes with soft tears of joy. Out of that enchanted land she went back for a little while into common life, but not in any common way. The sunshine, which had been slow to shine, broke out over the Dean’s Walk as she emerged from under the shadow of the trees; the path was cleared for her; the music pealed out from the Abbey. Unconsciously her steps fell into a kind of stately movement, keeping time. In her blessedness she moved softly on towards the shadow of the house in which she had now but a few days to live—like a princess walking to her coronation, like a martyr to her agony. Who could tell in which of the two the best similitude lay?