'In this house. But yet I cannot say that it is absolutely an appointment. I am going to ask your sister what my fate is to be.'
'And that is the appointment! Very well, my dear fellow; and may God prosper you. If you can convince the governor that it is all right, I shall make no objection. I wish, for Madeline's sake, that you had not such a terrible bee in your bonnet.'
'And you will go to the judge alone?'
'Oh, yes. I'll tell him———. What shall I tell him?'
'The truth, if you will. Good-bye, old fellow. You will not see me again to-night, nor yet to-morrow in this house, unless I am more fortunate than I have any right to hope to be.'
'Faint heart never won fair lady, you know,' said Augustus.
'My heart is faint enough then; but nevertheless I shall say what I have got to say.' And then he got up from the table.
'If you don't come down to us,' said Augustus, 'I shall come up to you. But may God speed you. And now I'll go to the governor.'
Felix made his way from the small breakfast-parlour in which they had dined across the hall into the drawing-room, and there he found Lady Staveley alone. 'So the trial is not over yet, Mr. Graham?' she said.
'No; there will be another day of it.'
'And what will be the verdict? Is it possible that she really forged the will?'
'Ah! that I cannot say. You know that I am one of her counsel, Lady Staveley?'
'Yes; I should have remembered that, and been more discreet. If you are looking for Madeline, Mr. Graham, I think that she is in the library.'
'Oh! thank you;—in the library.' And then Felix got himself out of the drawing-room into the hall again not in the most graceful manner. He might have gone direct from the drawing-room to the library, but this he did not remember. It was very odd, he thought, that Lady Staveley, of whose dislike to him he had felt sure, should have thus sent him direct to her daughter, and have become a party, as it were, to an appointment between them. But he had not much time to think of this before he found himself in the room. There, sure enough, was Madeline waiting to listen to his story. She was seated when he entered, with her back to him; but as she heard him she rose, and, after pausing for a moment, she stepped forward to meet him.
'You and Augustus were very late to-day,' she said.
'Yes. I was kept there, and he was good enough to wait for me.'
'You said you wanted to———speak to me,' she said, hesitating a little, but yet very little; 'to speak to me alone; and so mamma said I had better come in here. I hope you are not vexed that I should have told her.'
