when john brancker had brought his narrative to a close, hermia sat awhile without speaking. then she got up, and flinging her arms round john's neck, she kissed him twice very tenderly; then she crossed to the opposite side of the fireplace and did the same to aunt charlotte.
"whoever my unknown relatives may be," she said, with a little catch in her breath, "they cannot care greatly about me. they chose to cast me off when i was a child, and they are evidently determined that i shall never know more about them than i do now. why should i care more for them than they do for me, or, indeed, trouble myself about them in any way? if they were to make themselves known to-morrow, i could never learn to love them as i love you, my dear uncle and aunt--for i shall still continue to be your niece, shall i not?--as i have always been. nothing you have told me can change or alter in any way the relationship between us, or cause me to love you one whit less than i have always loved you. to you i owe everything; to my unknown relatives, nothing. as for the money, it belongs of right to you, and yours it must and shall be. not one shilling of it will i ever touch."
"my dear--my dear, that is a very rash thing of you to say. consider----"
"no, aunt, i won't consider; it is a thing about which no consideration is needed. this money was given to uncle john to help pay for my keep, and clothes, and education, and by every law of right and justice it belongs to him and to him alone."
"i could not touch it, my dear--that is quite out of the question. the idea of being paid for bringing you up! such money would seem to me like a contamination.
"what, then, would it seem like to me?"
"but consider, my dear," again urged miss brancker, "what a nice little fortune it will make for you if you ever get married."
at these words a vivid blush suffused hermia's cheeks.
"if i ever get married it will be to someone who knows my history, or rather, as much of it as any of us knows, and if he would demean himself so far as to accept a farthing of that money--well, if he were to do so i should never care for him again."
"it seems such a pity, such a very great pity," murmured miss brancker. "john and i have been congratulating ourselves all these years on the nice little nest-egg you would have when you came of age; and now, to think----!" she ended with a sigh.
"dear aunt charlotte, cannot you see, cannot you understand, how entirely out of the question it is that i should touch this money?"
"it is equally out of the question that john or i should touch it."
"in that case, when mr. hodgson calls next at the cottage i will bid him take back his money, and tell him that we will have none of it, and that if he never troubles himself to visit us again none of us will regret his absence. we don't want his money, and we don't want to know his secret. my relatives chose to disown me when i was a helpless child; now that i am grown up, i disown them!"
frank derison's letter to hermia had come as a sort of shock to her, but it was a shock of pleasurable surprise. she had known for some time past that the image of another had usurped in her heart the place she had once believed to be frank's, but which she had since discovered had never been his in reality. she had mistaken liking for love, as she had not been long in finding out when once the real and not the sham eros had aimed one of his shafts at her; and a growing certainty had taken possession of her that if, at the end of the twelve months, frank should press her to make the bond between them "a nearer one still and a dearer one," there would be no response to his wish in her heart. how foolish she had been! how severely she blamed herself, now that her eyes were opened, for having ever dreamed that she really loved him! it would be painful, very painful, to have to confess her mistake, but if he were to press his suit no other course would be open to her.
the twelve months which were to bring the secret engagement to an end in one form or another had terminated during the time of john's imprisonment. at a season of such deep trouble all thoughts of love and matrimony were out of the question, but the moment john's acquittal was an assured fact hermia began to dread that which might come to pass at any moment. the infrequency and shortness of frank's visits to the cottage during the time of john's absence, and the impossibility of not seeing how forced was the sympathy displayed by him on those occasions, had tended still more to open hermia's eyes; as a consequence of which, when frank's letter came to hand its contents filled her with a sense of glad relief. she could not refrain from kissing the letter, so unfeigned was her joy at the news it brought her. there was nothing now to hinder her from loving as much as she liked, even though her love should never be returned, nor he who was the secret object of it so much as suspect its existence. just now she asked for nothing beyond that--to love in secret as much as she liked.
clement hazeldine had not omitted to note how few and far between frank derison's visits to nairn cottage had been of late, and he did not fail to draw a happy augury therefrom. up to the date of john's imprisonment, clem had rarely gone to the cottage without either finding frank there before him, or leaving him there when he went away; but after that event, they seldom encountered each other. after all, as clem told himself, it might well be that he had been mistaken, and that there had never been any secret understanding, as he had all along tormented himself with believing there was, between frank and hermia. thus it fell out that john brancker had not been many days back at home before clem made up his mind to seize the first opportunity which might offer itself, and ascertain his fate once for all. his practice so far had not proved a very lucrative one, but it was growing steadily month by month, and old dr. finchdown had himself told him that he intended to retire in the course of next spring, and would recommend clem strongly to all his best patients, as his successor, so that, what with one thing and another, he seemed to see a reasonable prospect of being able to take to himself a wife in eighteen months, or, at the most, two years from then. the more he saw of hermia, the more strongly he felt to what an extent his future happiness was bound up with her.
the fates are often kind to lovers, and seem to provide opportunities for them, as if of set purpose; at least, so clem thought when, two or three evenings later, he found himself alone with hermia. john had gone next door to sit with mr. kittaway, who was confined to the house by an attack of gout, and clem had not been ten minutes at the cottage before miss brancker remembered that when shopping, during the afternoon, she had quite forgotten to buy some silk of the particular shade which she needed before she could put another stitch in the crewel-work, over the intricacies of which she spent so many placid hours. she must go at once, and rectify her oversight before the shops closed for the night. hermia offered to go in her place, but aunt charlotte, while thanking her, was dubious about trusting to other eyes the selection of the one particular shade and no other of which she stood in need. so the young people were left to themselves, and it was a full hour and a half--though neither clem nor hermia, had it not been for the irrefutable evidence of the clock, would have believed it half as long--before aunt charlotte, who, in addition to her shopping, had found one or two friends to call upon, got back to the cottage.
much had happened meanwhile.
when clem found himself with the longed-for opportunity ready to his hand, he shrank a little in dismay at the ordeal which faced him. most of us can afford to be bold before the occasion, and he was no exception to the rule. it had seemed to him that it would be an easy enough thing, when the proper moment should have come, to give utterance, if not to all, at least to a portion of that with which his heart was charged; but now that it was here, he found himself as one suddenly stricken dumb. it was not merely words, but ideas that for the time being had taken wing and deserted him: and yet clement hazeldine was a man not usually lacking in either one or the other. clear-headed and resolute of purpose in all the ordinary concerns of life, with a mind that was in the habit of marshalling its ideas with an almost mathematical precision, and a not unfluent tongue, he yet found himself in the presence of this april-eyed girl, in whose cheeks tender flushes of color came and went fitfully, without a word to say for himself. he raged inwardly, gnawing one end of his mustache meanwhile; but his doing so did not mend matters in the least. opposite him sat hermia, busy with her needle on some delicate piece of embroidery. she, too, seemed to have lost her tongue since miss brancker's departure. the silence was becoming strained.
then, all at once, through the party-wall between the two houses, there came to them faintly the strains of john's flute, with which, a moment later, were mingled the deeper notes of mr. kittaway's 'cello. his gout notwithstanding, it seemed that the ex-wine merchant was making an heroic effort to accompany his friend on his favorite instrument.
presently hermia and clem looked up and their eyes met. the air that was being played was one which they both recognized. they had heard it first one spring evening; heard it, softened by distance, as it was being played by some troupe of wandering musicians, and very sweet it had sounded. they had accidentally met, face to face, on the footpath which for miles follows the windings of the little river dene, and clem had ventured to turn back and walk with hermia the way she was going. it was the first time they had found themselves alone together, and by neither of them would the occasion ever be forgotten. then it was that a certain mischievous sprite, who had been lurking in their hearts for some time past, watching his opportunity, sprang full-armed and laughing into the light of day. from that hour clem knew that he loved hermia and she that she loved him, but neither guessed the other's secret until afterwards. how the softened strains that reached their ears brought back that eve as if it had been but yesterday, with all its golden burst of self-revelation which had then flashed dazzlingly upon them for the first time!
the magic of the music gave back his voice to clem. "if i were to live to be a hundred i should never forget that air," he said. "have you no recollection of having heard it before?"
"i seem to remember having heard it somewhere," answered hermia, with a finger-tip pressed to her lips, as if in doubt, although in reality she had no doubt at all on the point.
"oh! then you have not quite forgotten!" he cried, a great light of gladness breaking over his face. "we heard it played, in the distance, that evening last spring by the banks of the dene. i have often wondered what it is called."
hermia could have told him its name had she been minded to do so. she had chanced on it one day when she was buying some music, and had at once recognized it, but as it was she kept her own counsel.
"yes," said clem, at length, as if in continuation of some unspoken train of thought, "i shall never forget that evening. it was then that i first became sure of something which i had more than half suspected for months before."
"my own case exactly," whispered hermia to herself; but she went on demurely with her work, and did not even lift her eyes in response.
"can you not guess what it was that evening made me so sure of?" demanded clem, next moment, as he leaned forward with crossed arms on the table which divided them. "can you not guess?" he asked again. he had made the plunge and was becoming reckless.
"how should i?" answered hermia, with a little shake of her head, but still without looking up. "i was always a poor hand at guessing.
"it was then the sweet certainty came to me that i loved you!"
again no answer save a blush, but to herself hermia said: "and to me that i loved you!"
"it is a certainty which has dwelt with me ever since, and one that will never leave me while i have breath to speak your name." he was getting on very promisingly for a young man who had been as dumb as a flounder only five minutes before.
then, almost before hermia knew what had happened, he was on a chair by her side, and had one of her hands imprisoned in his. no wonder her heart beat tumultuously; indeed, so taken aback was she by his audacity that, for the moment, she quite forgot to make any effort to regain possession of her hand.
the hand was lifted to clem's lips, and an impassioned kiss imprinted on it; then, indeed, hermia strove to withdraw it, but to no purpose.
"listen," said clem, bending his face till it was within a few inches of hers. "i have just told you the secret which for many long months i have hidden carefully from everyone--from you no less than from others."
"perhaps he has not hidden it quite so carefully as he thinks," whispered hermia in her heart.
"you can now guess why i am here to-night. it is to tell you that i love you--a little thing to tell, but to me how full of meaning!--to tell you that all my happiness is bound up in you, and then to ask you whether you will try to love me a little in return."
try to love him! why, her heart had been his for months and months, if he had but known it!
she did not answer him in words, but raising her head, let her eyes meet his. he read his answer there.
his arm went round her and he drew her to him. as his lips touched hers in love's first rapturous kiss, they heard the grating of miss brancker's latch-key in the lock of the front door.
