Copus retired and shut the door.
A low voice at her ear as she again rested her head upon the arm of the sofa, whispered “Jane!”
On looking up she saw a tall man dressed in the usual waiter’s costume, with a large white cloth spread over his left arm.
“Harry Raymond!” she said, but by some unaccountable instinct speaking, even in the extremity of her surprise, in a tone of voice that scarcely reached beyond the person she addressed,—“In Heaven’s name, what do you here?—in this disguise? Aunt Alice will detect you, and then my situation will be made doubly miserable.”
“Then it is miserable, Jane? Why do you submit to it? Ah, Jane, you have forgotten, surely, the promises you gave me.”
“Forgetfulness seems to have existed on more sides than one. I have been four months in Lancashire, and am indebted, at last, to a chance meeting in Scotland for being recalled to your recollection.”
“Recollection!” echoed the young man, in the liveliness of his emotion flinging the white cloth upon the floor. “Good heavens! what can have put such a notion into your head? I have written letter upon letter, both to you and your guardian—that is, after I found out where you had gone to. My letters to you have not been answered; my letter to him was answered by a refusal.”
“Harry, Harry, he never consulted me—I never”——but here she checked herself, as perhaps she considered that the vehemence of her denial might be construed into something very like an anxiety to retract it; and whether this was the construction put on it or not, all we have to say is, that on Miss Alice Smith slipping quietly into the room, with a volume of the Scottish Chiefs in her hand, she almost screamed, as she saw a stranger seated on the sofa beside her niece, and holding her very earnestly by the hand.
“How! what’s all this?” exclaimed Miss Alice. “Them Scotch is the oddest people!”