"I was afraid I had vexed your brother somehow," said Mr. Longcluse--"I thought he seemed to meet me a little formally. I should be so sorry if I had annoyed him by any accident!"
He paused, and Miss Arden said, half laughing--"Oh, don't you know, Mr. Longcluse, that people are out of spirits sometimes, and now and then a little offended with all the world? It is nothing, of course."
"What a fib!" whispered conscience in the young lady's pretty ear, while she smiled and blushed.
Again she raised her hand a little, expecting Mr. Longcluse's farewell. But she looked a great deal too beautiful for a farewell. Mr. Longcluse could not deny himself a minute more, and he said, "It is a year, Miss Arden, since I first saw you."
"Yes, at Lady May Penrose's. Yes, I remember it distinctly--so distinctly that I shall never forget any circumstance connected with it. It is exactly a year and four days. You smile, Miss Arden, because for you the event can have had no interest; for me it is different--how different I will not say."
Miss Arden coloured and then grew pale. She was very much embarrassed. She was about to say a word to end the interview, and go. Perhaps Mr. Longcluse was, as he said, impulsive--too precipitate and impetuous. He raised his hand entreatingly,--
"Oh, Miss Arden, pray, only a word!--I must speak it. Ever since then--ever since that hour--I have been the slave of a single thought; I have worshipped before one beautiful image, with an impious adoration, for there is nothing--no sacrifice, no crime--I would shrink from for your sake. You can make of me what you will; all I possess, all my future, every thought and feeling and dream--all are yours. No, no; don't interrupt the few half desperate words I have to speak, they may move you to pity. Never before, in a life of terrible vicissitude, of much suffering, of many dangers, have I seen the human being who could move me as you have done. I did not believe my seared heart capable of passion. And I stand now aghast at what I have spoken. I stand at the brink of a worse death, by the word that trembles on your lips, than the cannon's mouth could give me. I see I have spoken rashly--I see it in your face--oh, Heaven! I see what you would say."