"In ten minutes, Sir George, I shall be ready. I make no apology for
what has passed. I only hope the time may come, when you will look less
severely on my conduct."
"Not likely," was the dry response of the baronet, and with these words
the two parted: Sir George going back to his guests in the drawing-room,
Maynard making his way to the apartment that contained his
_impedimenta_.
The packing of his portmanteau did not occupy him half the ten minutes'
time. There was no need to change his dancing-dress. His surtout would
sufficiently conceal it.
The bell brought a male domestic; who, shouldering the "trap," carried
it downstairs--though not without wondering why the gent should be
taking his departure, at that absurd hour, just as the enjoyment in the
drawing-room had reached its height, and a splendid supper was being
spread upon the tables!
Maynard having given a last look around the room, to assure himself that
nothing had been overlooked, was about preparing to follow the bearer of
his portmanteau, when another _attache_ of the establishment barred his
passage on the landing of the stair.
It was also a domestic, but of different kind, sex, and colour.
It was Sabina, of Badian birth.
"Hush! Mass Maynard," she said, placing her finger on her lips to
impress the necessity of silence. "Doan you 'peak above de breff, an' I
tell you someting dat you like hear."
"What is it?" Maynard asked, mechanically.
"Dat Missy Blanche lub you dearly--wit all de lub ob her young heart.
She Sabby tell so--yesserday--dis day--more'n a dozen times, oba an'
oba. So dar am no need you go into despair."
"Is that all you have to say?" asked he, though without any asperity of
tone.
It would have been strange if such talk had not given him pleasure,
despite the little information conveyed by it.
"All Sabby hab say; but not all she got do."
"What have you to do?" demanded Maynard, in an anxious undertone.
"You gib dis," was the reply of the mulatto, as, with the adroitness
peculiar to her race and sex, she slipped something white into the
pocket of his surtout.
The carriage wheels were heard outside the hall-door, gritting upon the
gravel.
Without danger of being observed, the departing guest could not stay in
such company any longer; and passing a half-sovereign into Sabby's hand,
he silently descended the stair, and as silently took seat in the
carriage.
The bearer of the portmanteau, as he shut to the carriage door, could
not help still wondering at such an ill-timed departure.
"Not a bad sort of gent, anyhow," was his reflection, as he turned back
under the hall-lamp to examine the half-sovereign that had been slipped
into his palm.
And while he was doing this, the gent in question was engaged in a far
more interesting scrutiny. Long before the carriage had passed out of
the park--even while it was yet winding round the "sweep"--its occupant
had plunged his hand into the pocket of his surtout and drawn out the
paper that had been there so surreptitiously deposited.
It was but a tiny slip--a half-sheet torn from its crested counterfoil.
And the writing upon it was in pencil; only a few words, as if scrawled
in trembling haste!
The light of the wax-candles, reflected from the silvered lamps,
rendered the reading easy; and with a heart surcharged with supreme joy,
he read:--
"Papa is very angry; and I know he will never sanction my seeing you
again. I am sad to think we may meet no more; and that you will forget
me. I shall never forget you--never!"
"Nor _I you_, Blanche Vernon," was the reflection of Maynard, as he
refolded the slip of paper, and thrust it back into the pocket of his
coat.
He took it out, and re-read it before reaching the railway station; and
once again, by the light of a suspended lamp, as he sat solitary in a
carriage of the night mail train, up for the metropolis.
Then folding it more carefully, he slipped it into his card-case, to be
placed in a pocket nearer his heart; if not the first, the sweetest
_guage d'amour_ he had ever received in his life!