She did not answer him in words, but raising her head, let her eyes meet his. He read his answer there.
His arm went round her and he drew her to him. As his lips touched hers in love's first rapturous kiss, they heard the grating of Miss Brancker's latch-key in the lock of the front door.
[CHAPTER XX.]
"WHAT WILL HE THINK? WHAT WILL HE SAY?"
Miss Brancker had scarcely been five minutes back at home before Doctor Hazeldine's boy came in search of his master. The services of the latter were required immediately at an address which the lad had brought with him; Clem must hurry off without a moment's delay. He would dearly have liked to give Hermia a parting kiss--it may be more than one--but nothing had yet been said to Miss Brancker, and such a proceeding on his part would certainly have surprised, and might possibly have shocked, that somewhat staid though by no means puritanical spinster. Accordingly, Clem had to content himself with a simple pressure of Hermia's hand, but that of itself conveyed a world of meaning from one to the other. As he was bidding her good-night, he contrived to whisper, "I will call to-morrow after my first round, and seek an interview with your uncle."
His words gave Hermia a certain shock. She turned hot from head to foot. In the great rush of gladness with which Clem's confession had filled her, she had forgotten all about the strange secret which had been imparted to her only a few days before. She had accepted him without telling him. What would he think of her, what would he say, when he learned the truth? How foolish--how forgetful she had been! He had asked her to be his wife under the belief that she was the orphan daughter of a sister of John Brancker. What would his feelings be when told that she was a "nobody's child"--that neither she nor those under whose roof she had been brought up knew anything whatever about her parentage or history, and that in all probability they never would know? Ah, if she had but remembered to tell him before allowing his lips to touch hers! In that case, perhaps--but it was too late to think of that now. All she could do was to intercept Clement on the morrow before he should have time to see her uncle--as she still continued to call John--and tell him all.
She was on the watch for him next day, and opened the door before he had time to knock. "Come in here, I want to speak to you," she said, as she shut the front door behind him, and opened that of the little parlor, the ordinary living-room of the family being on the opposite side of the entrance-hall. As soon as they were in the room and the door shut, Clem found it impossible to refrain from repeating the osculatory process of the previous evening.
Hermia's resistance was not a very determined one. "It may be for the last time," she said to herself with lips that quivered a little. "He may never want to kiss me again after I have told him."
"Sit there," she said to him, indicating a chair. "I have something to tell you which I ought to have told you last evening before"--(here she blushed and hesitated for an instant)--"before I allowed you to think that I cared for you a little; only, somehow, I don't know why, I quite forgot all about it at the time."
She paused and drew a deep breath. Then she went on to tell him in her own words that which John and his sister had so recently told her, including all about the twelve hundred and odd pounds lying in her name in the Dulminster Bank, of which she positively refused to touch a shilling.