"My mother won't mind it at all; but I really must go."

"Oh no. I am sure you can wait for five minutes. I don't want to keep you for more than five minutes. But it is so hard for a fellow to get an opportunity to say a few words."

"What words can you want to say to me, Mr. Anderson?" This she said with a look of great surprise, as though utterly unable to imagine what was to follow.

"Well, I did hope that you might have some idea of what my feelings are."

"Not in the least."

"Haven't you, now? I suppose I am bound to believe you, though I doubt whether I quite do. Pray excuse me for saying this, but it is best to be open." Florence felt that he ought to be excused for doubting her, as she did know very well what was coming. "I--I--Come, then; I love you!

If I were to go on beating about the bush for twelve months I could only come to the same conclusion."

"Perhaps you might then have considered it better."

"Not in the least. Fancy considering such a thing as that for twelve months before you speak of it! I couldn't do it,--not for twelve days."

"So I perceive, Mr. Anderson."

"Well, isn't it best to speak the truth when you're quite sure of it? If I were to remain dumb for three months, how should I know but what some one else might come in the way?"

"But you can't expect that I should be so sudden?"

"That's just where it is. Of course I don't. And yet girls have to be sudden too."

"Have they?"

"They're expected to be ready with their answer as soon as they're asked. I don't say this by way of impertinence, but merely to show that I have some justification. Of course, if you like to say that you must take a week to think of it, I am prepared for that. Only let me tell my own story first."

"You shall tell your own story, Mr. Anderson; but I am afraid that it can be to no purpose."

"Don't say that,--pray, don't say that,--but do let me tell it." Then he paused; but, as she remained silent, after a moment he resumed the eloquence of his appeal. "By George! Miss Mountjoy, I have been so struck of a heap that I do not know whether I am standing on my head or my heels. You have knocked me so completely off my pins that I am not at all like the same person. Sir Magnus himself says that he never saw such a difference. I only say that to show that I am quite in earnest. Now I am not quite like a fellow that has no business to fall in love with a girl. I have four hundred a year besides my place in the Foreign Office.

And then, of course, there are chances." In this he alluded to his brother's failing health, of which he could not explain the details to Miss Mountjoy on the present occasion. "I don't mean to say that this is very splendid, or that it is half what I should like to lay at your feet. But a competence is comfortable."

"Money has nothing to do with it, Mr. Anderson."

"What, then? Perhaps it is that you don't like a fellow. What girls generally do like is devotion, and, by George, you'd have that. The very ground that you tread upon is sweet to me. For beauty,--I don't know how it is, but to my taste there is no one I ever saw at all like you. You fit me--well, as though you were made for me. I know that another fellow might say it a deal better, but no one more truly. Miss Mountjoy, I love you with all my heart, and I want you to be my wife. Now you've got it!"

He had not pleaded his cause badly, and so Florence felt. That he had pleaded it hopelessly was a matter of course. But he had given rise to feelings of gentle regard rather than of anger. He had been honest, and had contrived to make her believe him. He did not come up to her ideal of what a lover should be, but he was nearer to it than Mountjoy Scarborough. He had touched her so closely that she determined at once to tell him the truth, thinking that she might best in this way put an end to his pa.s.sion forever. "Mr. Anderson," she said, "though I have known it to be vain, I have thought it best to listen to you, because you asked it."

"I am sure I am awfully obliged to you."

"And I ought to thank you for the kind feeling you have expressed to me.

Indeed, I do thank you. I believe every word you have said. It is better to show my confidence in your truth than to pretend to the humility of thinking you untrue."

"It is true; it is true,--every word of it."

"But I am engaged." Then it was sad to see the thorough change which came over the young man's face. "Of course a girl does not talk of her own little affairs to strangers, or I would let you have known this before, so as to have prevented it. But, in truth, I am engaged."

"Does Sir Magnus know it, or Lady Mountjoy?"

"I should think not."

"Does your mother?"

"Now you are taking advantage of my confidence, and pressing your questions too closely. But my mother does know of it. I will tell you more;--she does not approve of it. But it is fixed in Heaven itself. It may well be that I shall never be able to marry the gentleman to whom I allude, but most certainly I shall marry no one else. I have told you this because it seems to be necessary to your welfare, so that you may get over this pa.s.sing feeling."

"It is no pa.s.sing feeling," said Anderson, with some tragic grandeur.

"At any rate, you have now my story, and remember that it is trusted to you as a gentleman. I have told it you for a purpose." Then she walked out of the room, leaving the poor young man in temporary despair.

CHAPTER XVI.

MR. AND MISS GREY.

It was now the middle of October, and it may be said that from the time in which old Mr. Scarborough had declared his intention of showing that the elder of his sons had no right to the property, Mr. Grey, the lawyer, had been so occupied with the Scarborough affairs as to have had left him hardly a moment for other considerations.

He had a partner, who during these four months had, in fact, carried on the business. One difficulty had grown out of another till Mr. Grey's whole time had been occupied; and all his thoughts had been filled with Mr. Scarborough, which is a matter of much greater moment to a man than the loss of his time. The question of Mountjoy Scarborough's position had been first submitted to him in June. October had now been reached and Mr. Grey had been out of town only for a fortnight, during which fortnight he had been occupied entirely in unravelling the mystery. He had at first refused altogether to have anything to do with the unravelling, and had desired that some other lawyer might be employed.

But it had gradually come to pa.s.s that he had entered heart and soul into the case, and, with many execrations on his own part against Mr.

Scarborough, could find a real interest in nothing else. He had begun his investigations with a thorough wish to discover that Mountjoy Scarborough was, in truth, the heir. Though he had never loved the young man, and, as he went on with his investigations, became aware that the whole property would go to the creditors should he succeed in proving that Mountjoy was the heir, yet for the sake of abstract honesty he was most anxious that it should be so. And he could not bear to think that he and other lawyers had been taken in by the wily craft of such a man as the Squire of Tretton. It went thoroughly against the grain with him to have to acknowledge that the estate would become the property of Augustus. But it was so, and he did acknowledge it. It was proved to him that, in spite of all the evidence which he had hitherto seen in the matter, the squire had not married his wife until after the birth of his eldest son. He did acknowledge it, and he said bravely that it must be so. Then there came down upon him a crowd of enemies in the guise of baffled creditors, all of whom believed, or professed to believe, that he, Mr. Grey, was in league with the squire to rob them of their rights.

If it could be proved that Mountjoy had no claim to the property, then would it go nominally to Augustus, who according to their showing was also one of the confederates, and the property could thus, they said, be divided. Very shortly the squire would be dead, and then the confederates would get everything, to the utter exclusion of poor Mr.

Tyrrwhit, and poor Mr. Samuel Hart, and all the other poor creditors, who would thus be denuded, defrauded, and robbed by a lawyer's trick. It was in this spirit that Mr. Grey was attacked by Mr. Tyrrwhit and the others; and Mr. Grey found it very hard to bear.

And then there was another matter which was also very grievous to him.

If it were as he now stated,--if the squire had been guilty of this fraud,--to what punishment would he be subjected? Mountjoy was declared to have been innocent. Mr. Tyrrwhit, as he put the case to his own lawyers, laughed bitterly as he made this suggestion. And Augustus was, of course, innocent. Then there was renewed laughter. And Mr. Grey! Mr.

Grey had, of course, been innocent. Then the laughter was very loud. Was it to be believed that anybody could be taken in by such a story as this? There was he, Mr. Tyrrwhit: he had ever been known as a sharp fellow; and Mr. Samuel Hart, who was now away on his travels, and the others;--they were all of them sharp fellows. Was it to be believed that such a set of gentlemen, so keenly alive to their own interest, should be made the victims of such a trick as this? Not if they knew it! Not if Mr. Tyrrwhit knew it!

It was in this shape that the matter reached Mr. Grey's ears; and then it was asked, if it were so, what would be the punishment to which they would be subjected who had defrauded Mr. Tyrrwhit of his just claim. Mr.

Tyrrwhit, who on one occasion made his way into Mr. Grey's presence, wished to get an answer to that question from Mr. Grey. "The man is dying," said Mr. Grey, solemnly.

"Dying! He is not more likely to die than you are, from all I hear." At this time rumors of Mr. Scarborough's improved health had reached the creditors in London. Mr. Tyrrwhit had begun to believe that Mr.

Scarborough's dangerous condition had been part of the hoax; that there had been no surgeon's knives, no terrible operations, no moment of almost certain death. "I don't believe he's been ill at all," said Mr.

Tyrrwhit.

"I cannot help your belief," said Mr. Grey.

"But because a man doesn't die and recovers, is he on that account to be allowed to cheat people, as he has cheated me, with impunity?"

"I am not going to defend Mr. Scarborough; but he has not, in fact, cheated you."

"Who has? Come; do you mean to tell me that if this goes on I shall not have been defrauded of a hundred thousand pounds?"

"Did you ever see Mr. Scarborough on the matter?"