Little Novels

'And a splendid house and grounds,' Cosway continued.

The stout gentleman repeated the inarticulate sound.

Cosway began to feel amused. Was this curious old man deaf and dumb?

'Excuse my entering into conversation,' he persisted. 'I feel like a stranger here. There are so many people whom I don't know.'

The stout gentleman suddenly burst into speech. Cosway had touched a sympathetic fiber at last.

'There are a good many people here whom I don't know,' he said, gruffly. 'You are one of them. What's your name?'

'My name is Cosway, sir. What's yours?'

The stout gentleman rose with fury in his looks. He burst out with an oath; and added the in tolerable question, already three times repeated by others: 'How did you get here?' The tone was even more offensive than the oath. 'Your age protects you, sir,' said Cosway, with the loftiest composure. 'I'm sorry I gave my name to so rude a person.'

'Rude?' shouted the old gentleman. 'You want my name in return, I suppose? You young puppy, you shall have it! My name is Restall.'

He turned his back and walked off. Cosway took the only course now open to him. He returned to his lodgings.

The next day no letter reached him from Adela. He went to the postoffice. No letter was there. The day wore on to evening—and, with the evening, there appeared a woman who was a stranger to him. She looked like a servant; and she was the bearer of a mysterious message.

'Please be at the garden-door that opens on the lane, at ten o'clock to-morrow morning. Knock three times at the door—and then say 'Adela.' Some one who wishes you well will be alone in the shrubbery, and will let you in. No, sir! I am not to take anything; and I am not to say a word more.' She spoke—and vanished.

Cosway was punctual to his appointment. He knocked three times; he pronounced Miss Restall's Christian name. Nothing happened. He waited a while, and tried again. This time Adela's voice answered strangely from the shrubbery in tones of surprise: 'Edwin, is it really you?'

'Did you expect any one else?' Cosway asked. 'My darling, your message said ten o'clock—and here I am.'

The door was suddenly unlocked.

'I sent no message,' said Adela, as they confronted each other on the threshold.

In the silence of utter bewilderment they went together into the summer-house. At Adela's request, Cosway repeated the message that he had received, and described the woman who had delivered it. The description applied to no person known to Miss Restall. 'Mrs. Margery never sent you the invitation; and I repeat, I never sent you the message. This meeting has been arranged by some one who knows that I always walk in the shrubbery after breakfast. There is some underhand work going on—'

Still mentally in search of the enemy who had betrayed them, she checked herself, and considered a little. 'Is it possible—?' she began, and paused again. Her eyes filled with tears. 'My mind is so completely upset,' she said, 'that I can't think clearly of anything. Oh, Edwin, we have had a happy dream, and it has come to an end. My father knows more than we think for. Some friends of ours are going abroad tomorrow—and I am to go with them. Nothing I can say has the least effect upon my father. He means to part us forever—and this is his cruel way of doing it!'

She put her arm round Cosway's neck and lovingly laid her head on his shoulder. With tenderest kisses they reiterated their vows of eternal fidelity until their voices faltered and failed them. Cosway filled up the pause by the only useful suggestion which it was now in his power to make—he proposed an elopement.

Adela received this bold solution of the difficulty in which they were placed exactly as thousands of other young ladies have received similar proposals before her time, and after.

She first said positively No. Cosway persisted. She began to cry, and asked if he had no respect for her. Cosway declared that his respect was equal to any sacrifice except the sacrifice of parting with her forever. He could, and would, if she preferred it, die for her, but while he was alive he must refuse to give her up. Upon this she shifted her ground. Did he expect her to go away with him alone? Certainly not. Her maid could go with her, or, if her maid was not to be trusted, he would apply to his landlady, and engage 'a respectable elderly person' to attend on her until the day of their marriage. Would she have some mercy on him, and just consider it? No: she was afraid to consider it. Did she prefer misery for the rest of her life? Never mind his happiness: it was her happiness only that he had in his mind. Traveling with unsympathetic people; absent from England, no one could say for how long; married, when she did return, to some rich man whom she hated— would she, could she, contemplate that prospect? She contemplated it through tears; she contemplated it to an accompaniment of sighs, kisses, and protestations—she trembled, hesitated, gave way. At an appointed hour of the coming night, when her father would be in the smoking-room, and Mrs. Margery would be in bed, Cosway was to knock at the door in the lane once more; leaving time to make all the necessary arrangements in the interval.

The one pressing necessity, under these circumstances, was to guard against the possibility of betrayal and surprise. Cosway discreetly alluded to the unsolved mysteries of the invitation and the message. 'Have you taken anybody into our confidence?' he asked.

Adela answered with some embarrassment. 'Only one person,' She said—'dear Miss Benshaw.'

'Who is Miss Benshaw?'

'Don't you really know, Edwin? She is richer even than papa—she has inherited from her late brother one half- share in the great business in the City. Miss Benshaw is the lady who disappointed papa by not coming to the garden-party. You remember, dear, how happy we were when we were together at Mr. Atherton's? I was very miserable when they took me away. Miss Benshaw happened to call the next day and she noticed it. 'My dear,' she said (Miss Benshaw is quite an elderly lady now), 'I am an old maid, who has missed the happiness of her life, through not having had a friend to guide and advise her when she was young. Are you suffering as I once suffered?' She spoke so nicely—and I was so wretched—that I really couldn't help it. I opened my heart to her.'

Cosway looked grave. 'Are you sure she is to be trusted?' he asked.

'Perfectly sure.'