“Afterward!” echoed Everell; “and what will be her feelings then? I hadn’t thought of that.”
“We have all overlooked that, I own. We have thought only of you and your feelings. But you need not be dismayed—the most devoted of women are not inconsolable.”
“’Tis not that I think she loves me much; but she is of so tender a nature, when she learns the price I shall have paid—yet how could I have chosen otherwise, even considering her feelings?—what would she have thought, had I preferred to renounce her? Or suppose I had declined to choose?”
“Why, then, her feelings would be the same, on your being handed over to justice at once, as they will be a week hence. Nay, indeed, in a week’s time she may not be as sorry to be rid of you. We shall see when the time comes: if need be, we can hide the truth from her then as now—when the week is over, you can take your leave upon some pretext, and trust time to efface your image from her heart. Take my advice, trouble yourself not about her feelings: be happy for a week, and don’t think of ‘afterward.’”
Everell sighed, but in truth he could not at that time see how her feelings could have been spared in any measure by either of the other courses open to him. Indeed, it seemed to him that fidelity to her required him to elect as he had done; that any other choice would have been a renunciation of her, a treason to love. So let him be happy for a week: at the end, it would be time to think how to save her feelings.
“Very well, sir,” he said to Foxwell; “let her know nothing but that I am to be your guest for the present.”
“So be it; and you will help us all to keep your presence here a secret from the outside world. Best never appear on the side of the house toward the road.—But we can talk of that to-morrow, at breakfast. I will lay the servants under the heaviest charges, that they will hardly dare mention you to one another. If you are discovered by Jeremiah Filson or any such, not only may I fall under suspicion, but your week may be cut short.”
“I will be cautious, sir, if I have never been so in my life before.”
“And you had best go by some other name in the household. Shall we call you—ah—Mr. Charlson?”
Everell signified his willingness, and the next moment Georgiana entered, still dressed as she had been in the garden. Her face was pale and anxious, but her eyes brightened as they fell upon Everell released from his bonds. She was close followed by Prudence, whose nose shone red with the weeping in which she had copiously indulged to the delight and self-approval of her romantic soul.