“This is strange,” said Geoff; “indeed, it is true, I have been visiting a lady; but she is only twelve years old,” he said, turning to her with a vivid blush.
“Oh, Geoff!” Mary’s brow contracted, “you do not mean that little girl?”
“Why shouldn’t I mean her? I will make you my confessor, Cousin Mary. I don’t think. I shall ever marry any one but little Lily. Of course she is very little, and when she is grown up she will probably have nothing to say to me; but I shall never care for any one else. Why should you shake your head? I never saw any one like her,” said Geoff, growing solemn, and shaking off his blush as he saw himself opposed.
“Oh, Geoff!” Mary shook her head and contracted her beautiful brow, “I do not think anything good can come out of that family; but I must not speak. I am jealous, I suppose. How did you know I did not want you for Annie or Fanny?” she went on with a smile that was a little strained and fictitious; for Mary knew very well that she was jealous, but not for Annie, or Fanny, or Geoff.
“Hush,” he said, “I loved you before Lily, but you could not have me; it is Lily, failing you. If you could but have seen her just now! The Squire is lying between life and death, and Miss Musgrave, who was so good to her, is with him night and day, and poor little Lily is so lonely and frightened. She looks at me with her little lip all quivering, and says, ‘Papa! I want papa.’” Geoff almost cried himself to recollect her piteous tone, and the tears came to Mary’s eyes.
“Ah! if she takes after him, Geoff! but that is just what I want to talk to you about. I have done something that you may think rash. I have spoken to Sir Henry. He is—well, he has his faults like the rest of us—but he is just; he would not do a wrong thing. I told him that you had found out something—— ”
“What did he say?” cried Geoff, breathless, for Lady Stanton made a sudden pause.
She was looking across him out at the window; her eyes had strayed past his face, looking away from him as people do with a natural artifice to allow the first signs of displeasure to blow over, before they look an offended person in the face. But as she looked, Lady Stanton’s countenance changed, her lips fell apart, her eyes widened out, her face paled, as if a cloud had passed over it. She gave a great cry, “Oh John, John!” she said.
“What is it?—who is it?” cried Geoff.
She made him signs to have the carriage stopped; she could not speak. Geoff did what he could to make the coachman hear him; but it was by no means the affair of a moment to gain the attention of that functionary, and induce him to stop. When, however, this was accomplished, Geoff obeyed the passionate desire in Lady Stanton’s face, who all the time had been straining to look out, and jumped to the ground. He looked round anxiously, while she, half out of the carriage, gazed back, fixing her eyes upon one of those recesses in the road which are common in the north country. “I see no one,” said Geoff. He came back to the place on which her gaze was fixed, and looked behind the wall that bounded it, and all about, but could see nothing. When he returned he found that Mary had fallen back in her corner, and was weeping bitterly. “He looked at me with such reproachful eyes. Oh, he need not; there was no reason. I would have saved or served him with my life,” she cried; “and he had never any claim on me, Geoff, never any claim on me!—why should he come and look at me with such reproachful eyes? If he is dead, he ought to know better than that. Surely he ought to know—— ”