Miss Brancker had scarcely been five minutes back at home before Doctor Hazeldine's boy came in search of his master. The services of the latter were required immediately at an address which the lad had brought with him; Clem must hurry off without a moment's delay. He would dearly have liked to give Hermia a parting kiss--it may be more than one--but nothing had yet been said to Miss Brancker, and such a proceeding on his part would certainly have surprised, and might possibly have shocked, that somewhat staid though by no means puritanical spinster. Accordingly, Clem had to content himself with a simple pressure of Hermia's hand, but that of itself conveyed a world of meaning from one to the other. As he was bidding her good-night, he contrived to whisper, "I will call to-morrow after my first round, and seek an interview with your uncle."
His words gave Hermia a certain shock. She turned hot from head to foot. In the great rush of gladness with which Clem's confession had filled her, she had forgotten all about the strange secret which had been imparted to her only a few days before. She had accepted him without telling him. What would he think of her, what would he say, when he learned the truth? How foolish--how forgetful she had been! He had asked her to be his wife under the belief that she was the orphan daughter of a sister of John Brancker. What would his feelings be when told that she was a "nobody's child"--that neither she nor those under whose roof she had been brought up knew anything whatever about her parentage or history, and that in all probability they never would know? Ah, if she had but remembered to tell him before allowing his lips to touch hers! In that case, perhaps--but it was too late to think of that now. All she could do was to intercept Clement on the morrow before he should have time to see her uncle--as she still continued to call John--and tell him all.
She was on the watch for him next day, and opened the door before he had time to knock. "Come in here, I want to speak to you," she said, as she shut the front door behind him, and opened that of the little parlor, the ordinary living-room of the family being on the opposite side of the entrance-hall. As soon as they were in the room and the door shut, Clem found it impossible to refrain from repeating the osculatory process of the previous evening.
Hermia's resistance was not a very determined one. "It may be for the last time," she said to herself with lips that quivered a little. "He may never want to kiss me again after I have told him."
"Sit there," she said to him, indicating a chair. "I have something to tell you which I ought to have told you last evening before"--(here she blushed and hesitated for an instant)--"before I allowed you to think that I cared for you a little; only, somehow, I don't know why, I quite forgot all about it at the time."
She paused and drew a deep breath. Then she went on to tell him in her own words that which John and his sister had so recently told her, including all about the twelve hundred and odd pounds lying in her name in the Dulminster Bank, of which she positively refused to touch a shilling.
The young Doctor listened gravely silent, till she had finished all she had to say. Her dark-blue eyes, a little wider open than ordinary, were fixed on him with an air of expectancy; the sweet curve of her lips showed a glint of pearly teeth between; her bosom was rising and falling more quickly than ordinary; evidently she attached far more importance than he did to the revelation she had just made him. He gave her a reassuring smile; then he said gently,
"Would it have mattered greatly, darling, if you had never told me this? As far as I am concerned, it certainly would not. Mr. Brancker and his sister will still continue to be your uncle and aunt as they have always been, and you will still continue to be their orphan niece. Nothing is changed. Of course, it is only natural that now you understand so much, you should be desirous of knowing more, and----"
"But I am by no means sure that I am desirous of knowing more," interposed Hermia, softly, and yet proudly. "Whoever my relatives may be--that is, providing I have any at all--they have thought well to discard me, and such being the case, I do not know why I should trouble myself greatly about them."
"Your words are words of wisdom. Whoever the people may be who placed you with Mr. Brancker, and whatever the connection between you and them may be, it is quite evident that, for the present at least, they are determined to keep their secret to themselves, and that any attempt on your part to force it from them would probably be met by rebuffs and disappointment. As you say, why trouble yourself about them? Here are your true relations; here is the only home you have ever known. Let them go their way; all you ask is to be allowed to go yours without any interference on their part.
"You do but echo my own thoughts," said Hermia, with a heavenly smile.
"Which merely serves to prove still more clearly the affinity that exists between us."
"Ah, but have you sufficiently considered what you are doing--what risks you may be running in proffering to marry a nameless girl--for how can I be sure what my name really is?--about whose parentage and antecedents you know absolutely nothing? For aught you or I can tell to the contrary, there may be some dreadful disgrace hanging over my birth, or attaching itself in some way to those who have thought well to cast me off. Think what it would be if, after your marriage, something should come to light which would make you ashamed of your wife, something which would cause you to wish you had never met her! That would be enough to make her sorry she had ever been born, while, as for you----" She ceased, her sensitive lips quivering almost imperceptibly, while a tear shone in the corner of each of her eyes.
Again Clement smiled. "My dearest, are you not making a mountain out of a molehill?" he said. "It is a way your sex sometimes has. For my own part, I do not for one moment suppose that there is any disgrace, as you choose to term it, connected with your birth or parentage, or any secret which, if made known to the world to-morrow, you would have the slightest cause to be ashamed of. Such cases as yours are by no means so infrequent as you seem to think, and the explanation, when one is forthcoming, is usually of a very commonplace kind indeed. My advice to you is, to think as little as may be about that which Mr. Brancker has deemed it his duty to tell you--in fact, to treat it as though you had never heard it. You shake your head. Well, then, to adopt for the moment your own extreme view of the matter, do you, can you think that whatever may happen, whatever secret the future may bring to light, such a revelation can or will influence my love in th............