Miss Ladd looked at him with admiration. “You defend Emily?” she said.
“I love her,” Alban answered.
Miss Ladd felt for him, as Mrs. Ellmother had felt for him. “Trust to time, Mr. Morris,” she resumed. “The danger to be afraid of is—the danger of some headlong action, on her part, in the interval. Who can say what the end may be, if she persists in her present way of thinking? There is something monstrous, in a young girl declaring that it is her duty to pursue a murderer, and to bring him to justice! Don’t you see it yourself?”
Alban still defended Emily. “It seems to me to be a natural impulse,” he said—“natural, and noble.”
“Noble!” Miss Ladd exclaimed.
“Yes—for it grows out of the love which has not died with her father’s death.”
“Then you encourage her?”
“With my whole heart—if she would give me the opportunity!”
“We won’t pursue the subject, Mr. Morris. I am told by Mrs. Ellmother that you have something to say to me. What is it?”
“I have to ask you,” Alban replied, “to let me resign my situation at Netherwoods.”