Good-bye for a time, dear sister, and try, try to think as kindly as you can of Your affectionate brother,
ARTHUR EDEN.
This letter had the effect of dissipating every sad and anxious thought, and Fan undressed and went to bed, only to lie awake thinking of her happiness. Her heart was overflowing with love for her brother; for how great a comfort, a joy, it was to know that after all that had happened he was good and not bad! He was indeed more than good in the ordinary sense of the word, for what kindness and generosity and delicacy he had displayed towards her in his letter. So far did her leniency go that she even repeated his mad words, “Darling, I love you, you cannot conceive how much,” again and again with a secret satisfaction; for how hard it would have been if that passionate love he had felt for her, which only the discovery of their close relationship had made sinful, or inconvenient, had changed to aversion or cold indifference; and this would certainly have happened if Arthur Eden had not been so noble-minded a person.
When morning came she could not endure the thought that he was going away without that assurance from her own lips of which he had spoken. Mr. Tytherleigh would call to see her at one o'clock, but there were three or four long hours to get rid of before then, and in the end she dressed herself and went boldly to his apartments in Albemarle Street, where she arrived about eleven o'clock.
The servant who answered her knock did not know whether she could see Mr. Eden, and summoned her mistress.
“Mr. Eden has only been home about an hour,” said this lady, a little stiffly. “He said he was going to sleep, and that he was not to be disturbed on any account.”
“But he is going to leave town to-day, and I must see him,” returned Fan. Then, with a blush brightening her cheeks, she added, “I am his sister.”
“Why, miss, so you are!” exclaimed the woman astonished, and breaking out in smiles. “I never knew that Mr. Eden had a sister, but I might have guessed it when I saw you, for you are his very image. I'll just go up and ask him if he can see you.”
Fan, in her impatience, followed her up into Eden's sitting-room on the first floor. At the further end of the room the woman rapped at the door.
“What the devil do you want now? I told you not to disturb me,” was shouted in no amiable voice from inside.