"This is very sudden, this determination."
"Yes, I am called away by tidings I received awhile ago,--tidings of, to me, the deepest importance."
"Mark will be extremely sorry," said she, in a low tone.
"Not sorrier than I am," said he, despondently.
"We all counted on your coming back with us to the Abbey; and it was only awhile ago Bella begged that we should wait here for a day or two, that we might return together, a family party."
"What a flattery there is in the phrase!" said he, with deep feeling.
"You don't know," continued she, "what a favorite you are with my mother. I dare not trust myself to repeat how she speaks of you."
"Why will you multiply my regrets, Mrs. Trafford? Why will you make my parting so very, very painful?"
"Because I prefer that you should stay; because I speak in the name of a whole house who will be afflicted at your going."
"You have told me of all save one," said be, in a voice of deepest feeling; "I want to learn what she thinks."
"She thinks that if Mr. Maitland's good-nature be only on a par with his other qualities, he would sooner face the tiresomeness of a stupid house than make the owners of it feel that they bored him."
"She does not think anything of the kind," said he, with a peculiar smile. "She knows that there is no question of good nature or of boredom in the matter at all; but there is something at stake far more touching than either." He waited to see if she would speak, but as she was silent he went on: "I will be honest, if you will not. I am not going away of my freewill. I have been called by a telegram this morning to the Continent; the matter is so pressing that--shall I confess it?--if this stupid meeting with the Commodore had been arranged, I should have been a defaulter. Yes, I'd have made I don't well know what explanation to account for my absence. I can imagine what comments would have been passed upon my conduct. I feel very painfully, too, for the part I should have left to such of my friends here as would defend me, and yet have not a fragment to guide their defence. And still, with all these before me, I repeat, I would have gone away, so imminent is the case that calls me, and so much is the matter one that involves the whole future of my life. And now," said he, while his voice became fuller and bolder, "that I have told you this, I am ready to tell you more, and to say that at one word of yours--one little word--I 'll remain."