Charlotte instantly suspected an arrangement between the two men for a confidential interview. Her obstinate distrust of Bervie strengthened tenfold. She reluctantly gave him her hand, as he parted from her at the parlor-door. The effort of concealing her true feeling toward him gave a color and a vivacity to her face which made her irresistibly beautiful. Bervie looked at the woman whom he had lost with an immeasurable sadness in his eyes. “When we meet again,” he said, “you will see me in a new character.” He hurried out of the gate, as if he feared to trust himself for a moment longer in her presence.
Charlotte followed Percy into the passage. “I shall be here to-morrow, dearest!” he said, and tried to raise her hand to his lips. She abruptly drew it away. “Not that hand!” she answered. “Captain Bervie has just touched it. Kiss the other!”
“Do you still doubt the Captain?” said Percy, amused by her petulance.
She put her arm over his shoulder, and touched the plaster on his neck gently with her finger. “There’s one thing I don’t doubt,” she said: “the Captain did that!”
Percy left her, laughing. At the front gate of the cottage he found Arthur Bervie in conversation with the same shabbily-dressed man-servant who had announced the Captain’s visit to Charlotte.
“What has become of the other servant?” Bervie asked. “I mean the old man who has been with Mr. Bowmore for so many years.”
“He has left his situation, sir.”
“Why?”
“As I understand, sir, he spoke disrespectfully to the master.”
“Oh! And how came the master to hear of you?”