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She drew a deep breath, and, laying the letter softly down, went out of the room into Mrs. Elmore's. Elmore had not had time to kindle his sealing-wax when his wife appeared swiftly upon the scene. "I want to see what you have written, Owen," she said. "Don't talk to me, Celia," he replied, thrusting the wax into the candle-light.
Elmore's lap, and, catching her handkerchief to her eyes, she broke into tears and went out of the room. The note read: DEAR MISS LILY, Your kind interest in me gives me courage to say something that will very likely make me hateful to you forevermore. But I have got to say it, and you have got to know it; and it's all the worse for me if you have never suspected it.
Mark undertook to ride the horse through the river, and escort the three girls, and Gerard Godfrey also joined them. The place where he was staying lay a couple of miles beyond Lescombe, and when Mrs. Elmore's fly had been met and turned back by Mr. Egremont, he had jumped off to render assistance, and had done so effectively enough to win Mark's gratitude.
Elmore utterly prostrated by one of her old attacks, and he unable to leave her, or to take her with him to Genoa; the friends with whom Miss Mayhew travelled unable to bring her to Venice; she, of course, unable to come alone. The case deepened and darkened in Elmore's view as he unfolded it. "Why," cried the consul sympathetically, "if I could leave my post I'd go!"
Elmore's bronchitis was a disorder which active service would undoubtedly have aggravated; as it was, he made a last effort to be of use to our Government as a bearer of dispatches. Failing such an appointment, he submitted to expatriation as he best could; and in Italy he fought for our cause against the English, whom he found everywhere all but in arms against us.
Once more he was among his old friends and associates, and, without confessing the fact to himself, he infinitely preferred being with them to enjoying all the luxury and refinement which Lady Elmore's house in London had afforded. So the days flew rapidly by till the party of seamen had once more to rejoin their ship. She was bound for the Mediterranean. The first port they entered was Toulon.
"But how is he to be answered?" "I don't know. You can answer him." "I could never do it in the world!" "I own it's difficult," said Elmore coldly. "Oh, I will answer him I will answer him," cried Lily, "rather than have any trouble about it. Here, here," she said, reaching blindly for pen and paper, as she seated herself at Elmore's desk, "give me the ink, quick. Oh, dear! What shall I say?
A recent suicide for love which excited all Venice at that time an Austrian officer hopelessly attached to an Italian girl had shot himself had suggested their talk, and given fresh poignancy to the misgivings in Elmore's mind. "Well," said Hoskins, "those Dutch are queer.
"If it were known, I should have all the pressed men coming to me with long yarns, which it might be difficult to disprove." "Then, sir, perhaps you will take Sir Henry Elmore's word for it. You know his handwriting, I daresay.
"Well, you know the way to your room. You'll find everything ready there, and I shall let you go alone. You shall commence being at home at once." "Yes, I am sleepy," assented Lily; and she promptly said her good-nights and vanished; though a keener eye than Elmore's might have seen that her promptness had a color or say light of hesitation in it.
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