"Molly, tell me! Is it too late for me to speak to Cynthia? I came on
purpose. Who is that man?"
"Mr. Henderson. He only came to-day--but now he is her accepted
lover. Oh, Roger, forgive me the pain!"
"Tell her I have been, and am gone. Send out word to her. Don't let
her be interrupted."
And Roger ran downstairs at full speed, and Molly heard the
passionate clang of the outer door. He had hardly left the house
before Cynthia entered the room, pale and resolute.
"Where is he?" she said, looking around, as if he might yet be
hidden.
"Gone!" said Molly, very faint.
"Gone. Oh, what a relief! It seems to be my fate never to be off with
the old lover before I am on with the new, and yet I did write as
decidedly as I could. Why, Molly, what's the matter?" for now Molly
had fainted away utterly. Cynthia flew to the bell, summoned Maria,
water, salts, wine, anything; and as soon as Molly, gasping and
miserable, became conscious again, she wrote a little pencil-note to
Mr. Henderson, bidding him return to the "George," whence he had come
in the morning, and saying that if he obeyed her at once, he might be
allowed to call again in the evening, otherwise she would not see him
till the next day. This she sent down by Maria, and the unlucky man
never believed but that it was Miss Gibson's sudden indisposition in
the first instance that had deprived him of his charmer's company.
He comforted himself for the long solitary afternoon by writing to
tell all his friends of his happiness, and amongst them uncle and
aunt Kirkpatrick, who received his letter by the same post as that
discreet epistle of Mrs. Gibson's, which she had carefully arranged
to reveal as much as she wished, and no more.
"Was he very terrible?" asked Cynthia, as she sate with Molly in the
stillness of Mrs. Gibson's dressing-room.
"Oh, Cynthia, it was such pain to see him, he suffered so!"
"I don't like people of deep feelings," said Cynthia, pouting. "They
don't suit me. Why couldn't he let me go without this fuss? I'm not
worth his caring for!"
"You have the happy gift of making people love you. Remember Mr.
Preston,--he too wouldn't give up hope."
"Now I won't have you classing Roger Hamley and Mr. Preston together
in the same sentence. One was as much too bad for me as the other
is too good. Now I hope that man in the garden is the _juste
milieu_,--I'm that myself, for I don't think I'm vicious, and I know
I'm not virtuous."