They could meet in some retired spot at periods agreed upon at each meeting. At these interviews Charles would recount his labours and report progress. Evangeline would be able to gratify the wish nearest her heart, by being brought nearer to communion with her sister, and probably to win her back to peace, happiness and her home.
No sense of the impropriety of such clandestine meetings occurred to either. Charles Clinton had no thought of wrong; had Evangeline’s station been far humbler than his own, he would have met her, treated her with the respectful deference due from man to virtue and innocence, would have protected her if she needed his brave defence, and have restored her to her home as pure as when she first put her full trust in his honour.
Evangeline knew so little of evil, she saw none in taking this step. Her relatives were all frigid and harshly repellant to her. Helen had been cold to her, too, but at times she had displayed a passionate fondness for her, and those ebullitions of fondness had appeared when they were and could only be evidences of heart emotions, and it was these evident impulses which made Evangeline know that a fire of affection glowed beneath the icy surface, and to love her therefore. No trouble had been taken to instil and graft upon her innocent nature a full and perfect system of world-proprieties. She, therefore, arranged with Charles Clinton for their first meeting, in the most guileless faith in his honour—in the most implicit trustfulness in the expediency of the step she purposed taking, the end being good and charitable; and in perfect unconsciousness of the consequences likely to result from a series of clandestine meetings between a young and beautiful girl, and a very frank, open-featured, good-looking young fellow.
They were in an apartment upon the ground floor, whose windows opened and gave egress to a lawn, conducting to a gravelled path in the garden.
They had named the place, the day, the hour they were to meet, when Charles was to report to her how far his search was to prove successful. Evangeline had just innocently placed her hand in his, as he was bidding her farewell, when a shadow fell upon the pair.
Both looked up, startled.
They beheld before them a young man, whose form was concealed by a cloak, but whose face was white and haggard.
Evangeline uttered a faint scream, and instinctively drew close to Charles for protection.
The stranger observed the surprise of one, and the affright of the other.
“Be not alarmed,” he cried, in a low, hurried tone; “I have no sinister motive, I swear before Heaven, though I appear thus strangely before you. Miss Gra-hame, I would have one word with you—for mercy sake do not deny me.”