Mary languidly lifts her eyes, and Eugene is before her. The place and circumstance of this meeting, admitted not at first of any very open demonstration of feeling, such as must necessarily have been excited. A few low, hurried, agitated sentences were uttered by Trevor, as he bent forward into the carriage towards Mary, whose pale lips could scarcely articulate incoherent expressions of her sudden joy.
Then, by a peremptory gesture from the gentleman, the servant is commanded to let down the steps. He obeys. Trevor springs in. The door is closed; a moment's whispered consultation, and in faltering tones Mary gives orders to be driven to the Temple, and the carriage rolls off in that direction.
Once more alone together--once more by Eugene's side--Mary sees already the cloud dispersed--fear, doubt, misgiving, vanished from her path.
How comes it, then, that misery and bewilderment is the confused impression which this interview shall afterwards leave upon her mind? How is it, that for the most part of that long way, she sits weeping silently, her cold hand trembling in the burning palm of Eugene?--he now in low, despairing accents bemoaning his grief, his pain--now passionately cursing his wretched fortunes, his fatal circumstances?
But no explanation--no hope--no promised deliverance from the sorrow or the evil.
Once, indeed, in a low and hurried tone, he breathed into her ear the notion of a clandestine marriage--a secret union--one to be kept concealed till such a time as the present necessity for secresy should be at an end; the idea probably suggested to his mind by passing one of those dark, often magnificent, but almost unfrequented churches, so well suited, to all appearance, for the celebration of mysterious rites and secret ceremonies, which rear their heads in some of the close, dark streets of the city. But the firm, though gentle withdrawal of her hand, the look of almost cold astonishment which marked her reception of this desperate proposition, sufficed to convey to Eugene Trevor's mind the full conviction that with all her yielding tenderness, her feminine weakness of disposition, never must he hope to tempt his gentle, pure-hearted love from the right, straight road of principle and duty into any crooked path of deviating, or questionable proceeding.