In the distress that she caused me I forgot the years that had passed, and the change they had made in our position towards one another. I moved my chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face gently. ‘Don't cry, my love,' I said, and dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten long years ago.
It was the best way I could have taken to compose her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears.
‘I am very sorry for forgetting myself,' she said artlessly. ‘I have not been well -- I have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and I often cry without reason when I am alone. I am better now -- I can answer you as I ought, Mr Gilmore, I can indeed.'
‘No, no, my dear,' I replied, ‘we will consider the subject as done with for the present. You have said enough to sanction my taking the best possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another opportunity.
Let us have done with business now, and talk of something else.'
I led her at once into speaking on other topics. In ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and I rose to take my leave.
‘Come here again,' she said earnestly. ‘I will try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again.'
Still clinging to the past -- that past which I represented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at the end of mine.
‘If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better,' I said; ‘better and happier. God bless you, my dear!'
She only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts, and mine ached a little as I took leave of her.
The whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour -- she had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, I neither knew how nor why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him.
I left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his word and claiming her release. A man of my age and experience ought to have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the truth, and say -- so it was.
The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I sent to Mr Fairlie to say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: ‘Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore.
Hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of yourself.
Goodbye.' rust before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a moment alone.
‘Have you said all you wanted to Laura?' she asked.
‘Yes,' I replied. ‘She is very weak and nervous -- I am glad she has you to take care of her.'
Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face attentively.
‘You are altering your opinion about Laura,' she said. ‘You are readier to make allowances for her than you were yesterday.'
No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. I only answered --
‘Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till I hear from you.'
She still looked hard in my face. ‘I wish it was all over, and well over, Mr Gilmore -- and so do you.' With those words she left me.
Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door.
‘If you are ever in my neighbourhood,' he said, ‘pray don't forget that I am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of mine.'
A really irresistible man -- courteous, considerate, delightfully free from pride -- a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the interests of Sir Percival Glyde -- anything in the world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his wife.