Marsten stood hesitatingly on the door-step; not knowing exactly the next best thing to do. After the events of yesterday, there was some difficulty about seeking an interview with the manager at his office.
“Mrs. Sartwell’s not home either,” said the servant, noting his indecision; “but Miss Sartwell is in the garden. Perhaps you would like to see her?”
Perhaps! The young man’s pulses beat faster at the mere mention of her name. He had tried to convince himself that he lingered there through disappointment at finding the manager away from home; but he knew that all his faculties were alert to catch sight or sound of her. He hoped to hear her voice; to get a glimpse of her, however fleeting. He wanted nothing so much on earth at that moment as to speak with her—to touch her hand; but he knew that if he met her, and the meeting came to her father’s knowledge, it would kindle Sartwell’s fierce resentment against him, and undoubtedly jeopardize his mission. Sartwell would see in his visit to Wimbledon nothing but a ruse to obtain an interview with the girl. Braunt had trusted him, and had sent him off with a hearty God-speed; the fate of exasperated men on the very brink of disorder might depend on his success. Women and children might starve to pay for five minutes’ delightful talk with Edna Sartwell. No such temptation had ever confronted him before, and he put it away from him with a faint and wavering hand.
“No,” he said, with a sigh, “it was Mr. Sartwell I wanted to see. I will call upon him at his office.”
The servant closed the door with a bang. Surely he did not need to take all that time, keeping her standing there, to say “No.”
The smallness of a word, however, bears little relation to the difficulty there may be in pronouncing it. Yet the bang of the door resulting from his hesitation brought about the very meeting he had with such reluctance resolved to forego. It is perhaps hardly complimentary to Sartwell to state that, when his daughter heard the door shut so emphatically, she thought her father had returned, and that something had gone wrong. Patience was not among Sartwell’s virtues, and when his wife, actuated solely by a strict sense of duty, endeavoured to point out to him some of his numerous failings, the man, instead of being grateful, often terminated a conversation intended entirely for his own good, by violently slamming the door and betaking himself to the breezy common, where a person may walk miles without going twice over the same path.
The girl ran towards the front of the house, on hearing the noisy closing of the door, and was far from being reassured when she recognized Marsten almost at the gate. That something had happened to her father instantly flashed across her mind, She fleetly overtook the young man, and his evident agitation on seeing her confirmed her fears.
“Oh, Mr. Marsten,” she cried, breathlessly, “is there anything wrong? Has there been more trouble at the works?”
“No; I don’t think so,” he stammered.
“I feel sure something is amiss. Tell me, tell me. Don’t keep me in suspense.”