Tom looked from one to the other. "But I can't understand," he said. "I didn't know--that he knew you, even."
"And I didn't know that he knew you!" she answered bitterly. "He is a villain, and that was his plan. We were not to know."
Tom turned to the Irishman; and the latter's deprecatory shrug was vain. "What have you to say?" Tom cried in a voice almost terrible.
But Hawkesworth, who did not lack courage, was himself again, easy, alert, plausible. "Much," he said coolly. "Much, dear lad. The whole thing is a mistake. I loved your sister"--he bowed gravely in her direction, and stole a glance as he did so, to learn how she took it, and how far he still had a chance with her. "I loved her, I say, I still love her, though she has shown that she puts as little faith in me, as she can ever have entertained affection for me. But I knew her as Miss Maitland, I did not know that she was your sister. Once I think she mentioned a brother; but no more, no name. For the rest, I had as little reason to expect to find her here as you had. That I swear!"
The last words hit Tom uncomfortably; her presence in this man's room was a fact hard to swallow. The brother turned on the sister. "Is this true?" he hissed.
Sophia winced. "It is true," she faltered.
"Then what brought you here?" Tom cried, with brutal frankness.
The girl shivered; she never forgot the pain of that moment, never forgot the man who had caused her that humiliation. "Ask him!" she panted. "Or no, I will tell you, Tom. He swore that he loved me. He made me, poor silly fool that I was, believe him. He said that if I would elope with him to-morrow, he would marry me at Dr. Keith's chapel; and fearing they--my sister--would marry me against my will to--to another man, I consented. Then--they were going to send me away in the morning, and it would have been too late. I came away this afternoon to tell him, and--and----"
"There you have the explanation, Sir Thomas," Hawkesworth interposed, with an air of candid good nature. "And in all you'll say, I think, that there is nothing of which I need be ashamed. I loved your sister, she was good enough to fancy that she was not indifferent to me. My intentions were honourable, but her friends were opposed to my suit. I had her consent to elope, and if she had not on a sudden discovered, as she apparently has discovered, that her heart is not mine, we should have been married within a few days."
"To-morrow, sir, to-morrow!" Sophia cried. And would have confronted him with his letter; but it was in the folds of her dress, and she would not let him see where she kept it.