A Climax is reached.

When Edgar Berrington discovered the cottage by the sea, and ascertained that Miss Pritty was within, he gave his name, and was ushered into the snug little room under the name of Mr Briggington. Aileen gave a particularly minute, but irrepressible and quite inaudible scream; Mr Hazlit sat bolt up in his chair, as if he had seen a ghost; and Miss Pritty—feeling, somehow, that her diplomacy had not become a brilliant success—shrank within herself, and wished it were to-morrow.

Their various expressions, however, were as nothing compared with Edgar’s blazing surprise.

“Mr Hazlit,” he stammered, “pray pardon my sudden intrusion at so unseasonable an hour; but, really, I was not aware that—did you not get my telegram, aunt?”

He turned abruptly to Miss Pritty.

“Why ye–es, but I thought that you—in fact—I could not imagine that—”

“Never mind explanations just now,” said Mr Hazlit, recovering himself, and rising with a bland smile, “you are welcome, Mr Berrington; no hour is unseasonable for one to whom we owe so much.”

They shook hands and laughed; then Edgar shook hands with Aileen and blushed, no doubt because she blushed, then he saluted his aunt, and took refuge in being very particular about her receipt of the telegram. This threw Miss Pritty into a state of unutterable confusion, because of her efforts to tell the truth and conceal the truth at one and the same time. After this they spent a very happy evening together, during the course of which Mr Hazlit took occasion to ask Edgar to accompany him into a little pigeon-hole of a room which, in deference to a few books that dwelt there, was styled the library.

“Mr Berrington,” he said, sitting down and pointing to a chair, “be seated. I wish to have a little private conversation with you. We are both practical men, and know the importance of thoroughly understanding each other. When I saw you last—now about two years ago—you indicated some disposition to—to regard—in fact to pay your addresses to my daughter. At that time I objected to you on the ground that you were penniless. Whether right or wrong in that objection is now a matter of no importance, because it turns out that I was right on other grounds, as I now find that you did not know your own feelings, and did not care for her—”

“Did not care for her?” interrupted Edgar, in sudden amazement, not unmingled with indignation.

“Of course,” continued Mr Hazlit, with undisturbed calmness, “I mean that you did not care for her sufficiently; that you did not regard her with that unconquerable affection which is usually styled ‘love’, and without which no union can be a happy one. The proof to me that your feeling towards her was evanescent, lies in the fact that you have taken no notice either of her or of me for two years. Had you gained my daughter’s affections, this might have caused me deep regret, but as she has seldom mentioned your name since we last saw you, save when I happened to refer to you, I perceive that her heart has been untouched—for which I feel exceedingly thankful, knowing as I do, only too well, that we cannot command our affections.”

Mr Hazlit paused a moment, and Edgar was so thunderstruck by the unexpected nature of his host’s discourse, that he could only stare at him in mute surprise and unbelief in the evidence of his own ears.

“Now,” resumed Mr Hazlit, “as things stand, I shall be very happy indeed that we should return to our old intimacy. I can never forget the debt of obligation we owe to you as our rescuer from worse than death—from slavery among brutalised men, and I shall be very happy indeed that you should make my little cottage by the sea—as Aileen loves to style it—your abode whenever business or pleasure call you to this part of the country.”

The merchant extended his hand with a smile of genuine urbanity. The youth took it, mechanically shook it, let it fall, and continued to stare in a manner that made Mr Hazlit feel quite uneasy. Suddenly he recovered, and, looking the latter earnestly in the face, said:—

“Mr Hazlit, did you not, two years ago, forbid me to enter your dwelling?”

“True, true,” replied the other somewhat disconcerted; “but the events which have occurred since that time warranted your considering that order as cancelled.”

“But you did not say it was cancelled. Moreover your first objection still remained, for I was nearly penniless then, although, in the good providence of God, I am comparatively rich now. I therefore resolved to obey your injunctions, sir, and keep away from your house and from your daughter’s distracting influence, until I could return with a fe............