'But how did he know that I was passing?' Mr. Fishwick cried, thrusting back his wig and rubbing his head in perplexity. He could not yet believe that it was chance and only chance had brought them together.
And she was equally ignorant. 'I don't know,' she said. 'He only told me--that he would have a carriage waiting at the gate.'
'And why did he not come with you?'
'He said--I think he said he was under obligations to Mr. Pomeroy.'
'Pomeroy? Pomeroy?' the lawyer repeated slowly. 'But sure, my dear, if he was a villain, still, having the clergyman with you you should have been safe. This Mr. Pomeroy was not in the same case as Mr. Dunborough. He could not have been deep in love after knowing you a dozen hours.'
'I think,' she said, but mechanically, as if her mind ran on something else, 'that he knew who I was, and wished to make me marry him.'
'Who you were!' Mr. Fishwick repeated; and--and he groaned.
The sudden check was strange, and Julia should have remarked it. But she did not; and after a short silence, 'How could he know?' Mr. Fishwick asked faintly.
'I don't know,' she answered, in the same absent manner. Then with an effort which was apparent in her tone, 'Lord Almeric Doyley was there,' she said. 'He was there too.'
'Ah!' the lawyer replied, accepting the fact with remarkable apathy. Perhaps his thoughts also were far away. 'He was there, was he?'