“Is it Emily?” said Harrington hastily, in a voice which he could not keep from trembling.
Wentworth instantly took the tone as evidence of Harrington’s love for Miss Ames, and with a bitter feeling filling his heart as the sense of the injury she had done him, swept over him, he became self-possessed and cold.
“Emily!” he repeated, affecting surprise and looking at Harrington’s flushed face with desperate placidity, while a faint smile curved his proud lip. “Indeed, Harrington, none of Emily’s lovers have a rival in me.”
The answer was at once a taunt and an evasion, but to Harrington it seemed decisive, and spoken in plain good-faith. It fell upon him like a death-blow, but his heart, mailed in magnanimity, rose from under it, and he forced himself to smile, lest Wentworth should be pained by perceiving that it gave him pain. As yet, Wentworth had not the least idea that his friend loved Muriel. And, as yet, he did not perceive that he had just given Harrington to understand that he himself was her lover.
So, thought Harrington, Witherlee told the truth after all, and I was not mistaken.
“Richard,” he cried, springing from his seat, and crossing over to Wentworth, who instantly rose, startled by his sudden movement, as well as by the strange emotion which struggled with a smile in his lit face. “Richard, I give you joy. I do with all my heart and soul. You should have told me before, that I might sooner have been happy in your happiness. But I am glad to know it now—from your own lips, for I knew it, or all but knew it, before. My love and blessing on you both forever!”
All this poured forth impetuously, his hands grasping Wentworth’s, his features convulsed and smiling, his kind eyes shining through tears. An awful feeling swept down, like an avalanche, on Wentworth. Petrified with the suddenness of the revelation, he not only saw that he had inadvertently confessed himself Muriel’s lover, but he saw that Harrington loved her! He strove to speak, but his lips refused their office, and no form of words came to his whirling mind. Harrington saw his pallor and agitation, and mistaking them for the signs of a young lover’s emotion at being thus brusquely congratulated, wrung his hands once more, and turned away. Wentworth, too much overwhelmed to even think, sank down upon his seat, and leaning his arm on the back of the sofa, covered his hot eyes with his hand.
At that moment a low, piteous whine was heard in the yard. Harrington started and colored and went out instantly.
Wentworth, meanwhile, hearing the noise, and aware of his friend’s exit, took no heed of either, but sat trying to compose his mind to think of the new complication in which he found himself.