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She received him without any pretence of Mrs. Rock's intermediary presence, and put before him a letter which she had received, before writing him, from St. John, and which she could not answer without first submitting it to him. It was a sufficiently straightforward expression of his regret that he could not accept her very generous offer for St. Johnswort because the place was already sold.
Johnswort he would be happy to notify him of it. "You see," she eagerly commented to Hewson, "he does not give your name; but I know who it is, though I did not know when I made him my offer. I must answer his letter now, and what shall I say? Shall I tell him I know who it is? I should like to; I hate all concealments! Will it do any harm to tell him I know?" Hewson reflected.
Miss Hernshaw, may I ask whether you have done anything it seems a very unwarrantable question about St. Johnswort?" "About buying it?" "Yes. It will be useless to make any offer for it." "Why will it be useless to do that?" "Because because I have bought it myself." "You have bought it?" "Yes; when he came to me last night, and made those representations Well, in short, I have bought the place."
Rock got him into a corner, and cozily began, "I always feel like explaining Rosalie a little," and then her vague, friendly eye wandered toward Miss Hernshaw across the room, and stopped, as if waiting for the girl to look away. But Miss Hernshaw did not look away, and that afternoon, Hewson's week being up, he left St. Johnswort before dinner.
After his marriage, which took place without needless delay, Hewson returned with his wife to spend their honey-moon at St. Johnswort. The honey-moon prolonged itself during an entire year, and in this time they contrived so far to live down its reputation of being a haunted house that they were able to conduct their menage on the ordinary terms.
Johnswort guests in the figure approaching the steps, and apparently had his worst fears roused for Hewson's sanity when Hewson called to him and wondered if he could get a cup of coffee at that hour; he openly owned it was an unnatural hour, and he had a fine inward sense that it was supernatural.
Johnswort, of which she, with his vision, formed the supreme interest and equally the mystery; and it went warmly to his heart to have her peremptorily abolish all banalities by saying, "I was wondering if they were going to give me you, as soon as you came in." She put her slim hand on his arm as she spoke, and he thought she must have felt him quiver at her touch.
The look and the smile became personal to him, and she welcomed him with a curious resumption of the confidential terms in which they had seemed to part that afternoon at St. Johnswort. He thought that she was going to begin talking to him where she had left off, about Rosalie, as she had called her, and he was disappointed in the commonplaces that actually ensued.
"Of all things in the world; though it isn't the custom." Miss Hernshaw was silent for a moment. Then she said, "I believe I should like a little time." "Oh, I didn't expect you to answer me at once, I" "But if you are going to Europe?" "I needn't go to Europe at all. I can go to St. Johnswort, and wait for your answer there." "It might be a good while," she urged.
She repressed, apparently, some form of protest, and presently asked, "And what shall I say?" "Oh, if you like, that you have learned who the purchaser of St. Johnswort is, and that you know he will not give way." "Well!" she said, with a quick sigh, as of disappointment. After an indefinite pause, she asked, "Shall you be going to St. Johnswort?" "Why, I don't know," Hewson answered.
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