from a stranger," she said. "If you bring news from – from my father, why is it not told to Dr. Melmoth?"
"Because what I have to say is for your ear alone," was the reply; "and if you would avoid misfortune now, and sorrow hereafter, you will not refuse to hear me."
"And does it concern my father?" asked Ellen, eagerly.
"It does – most deeply," answered the stranger.
She meditated a moment, and then replied, "I will not refuse, I will hear – but speak quickly."
"We are in danger of interruption in this place, and that would be fatal to my errand," said the stranger. "I will await you in the garden."
With these words, and giving her no opportunity for reply, he drew back; and his form faded from her eyes. This precipitate retreat from argument was the most probable method that he could have adopted of gaining his end. He had awakened the strongest interest in Ellen's mind; and he calculated justly in supposing that she would consent to an interview upon his own terms.
Dr. Melmoth had followed his own fancies in the mode of laying out his garden; and, in consequence, the plan that had undoubtedly existed in his mind was utterly incomprehensible to every one but himself. It was an intermixture of kitchen and flower garden, a labyrinth of winding paths, bordered by hedges, and impeded by shrubbery. Many of the original trees of the forest were still flourishing among the exotics which the doctor had transplanted thither. It was not without a sensation of fear, stronger than she had ever before experienced, that Ellen Langton found herself in this artificial wilderness, and in the presence of the mysterious stranger. The dusky light deepened the lines of his dark, strong features; and Ellen fancied that his countenance wore a wilder and a fiercer look than when she had met him by the stream. He perceived her agitation, and addressed her in the softest tones of which his voice was capable.
"Compose yourself," he said; "you have nothing to fear from me. But we are in open view from the house, where we now stand; and discovery would not be without danger to both of us."
"No eye can see us here," said Ellen, trembling at the truth of her own
observation, when they stood beneath a gnarled, low-branched pine, which
Dr. Melmoth's ideas of beauty had caused him to retain in his garden.
"Speak quickly; for I dare follow you no farther."
The spot was indeed sufficiently solitary; and the stranger delayed no longer to explain his errand.
"Your father," he began, – "do you not love him? Would you do aught for his welfare?"
"Everything that a father could ask I would do," exclaimed Ellen, eagerly.
"Where is my father? and when shall I meet him?"
"It must depend upon yourself, whether you shall meet him in a few days or never."
"Never!" repeated Ellen. "Is he ill? Is he in danger?"
"He is in danger," replied the man, "but not from illness. Your father is a ruined man. Of all his friends, but one remains to him. That friend has travelled far to prove if his daughter has a daughter's affection."
"And what is to be the proof?" asked Ellen, with more calmness than the stranger had anticipated; for she possessed a large fund of plain sense, which revolted against the mystery of these proceedings. Such a course, too, seemed discordant with her father's character, whose strong mind and almost cold heart were little likely to demand, or even to pardon, the romance of affection.
"This letter will explain," was the reply to Ellen's question. "You will see that it is in your father's hand; and that may gain your confidence, though I am doubted."
She received the letter; and many of her suspicions of the stranger's truth were vanquished by the apparent openness of his manner. He was preparing to speak further, but paused, for a footstep was now heard, approaching from the lower part of the garden. From their situation, – at some distance from the path, and in the shade of the tree, – they had a fair chance of eluding discovery from any unsuspecting passenger; and, when Ellen saw that the intruder was Fanshawe, she hoped that his usual abstraction would assist their concealment.
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