After staying in the room about five minutes, Mr. Sherwin whispered to his wife, and left us.  Mrs. Sherwin still kept her place; but she said nothing, and hardly turned to look round at us more than once or twice.  Perhaps she was occupied by her own thoughts; perhaps, from a motive of delicacy, she abstained even from an appearance of watching her daughter or watching me.  Whatever feelings influenced her, I cared not to speculate on them.  It was enough that I had the privilege of speaking to Margaret uninterruptedly; of declaring my love at last, without hesitation and without reserve.

How much I had to say to her, and how short a time seemed to be left me that evening to say it in!  How short a time to tell her all the thoughts of the past which she had created in me; all the self-sacrifice to which I had cheerfully consented for her sake; all the anticipations of future happiness which were concentrated in her, which drew their very breath of life, only from the prospect of her rewarding love!  She spoke but little; yet even that little it was a new delight to hear.  She smiled now; she let me take her hand, and made no attempt to withdraw it.  The evening had closed in; the darkness was stealing fast upon us; the still, dead-still figure of Mrs. Sherwin, always in the same place and the same attitude, grew fainter and fainter to the eye, across the distance of the room—­but no thought of time, no thought of home ever once crossed my mind.  I could have sat at the window with Margaret the long night through; without an idea of numbering the hours as they passed.

Ere long, however, Mr. Sherwin entered the room again, and effectually roused me by approaching and speaking to us.  I saw that I had stayed long enough, and that we were not to be left together again, that night.  So I rose and took my leave, having first fixed a time for seeing Margaret on the morrow.  Mr. Sherwin accompanied me with great ceremony to the outer door.  Just as I was leaving him, he touched me on the arm, and said in his most confidential tones: 

“Come an hour earlier, to-morrow; and we’ll go and get the licence together.  No objection to that—­eh?  And the marriage, shall we say this day week?  Just as you like, you know—­don’t let me seem to dictate.  Ah! no objection to that, either, I see, and no objection on Margaret’s side, I’ll warrant!  With respect to consents, in the marrying part of the business, there’s complete mutuality—­isn’t there?  Good night:  God bless you!”

XII.

That night I went home with none of the reluctance or the apprehension which I had felt on the last occasion, when I approached our own door.  The assurance of success contained in the events of the afternoon, gave me a trust in my own self-possession—­a confidence in my own capacity to parry all dangerous questions—­which I had not experienced before.  I cared not how soon, or for how long a time, I might find myself in company with Clara or my father.  It was well for the preservation of my secret that I was in this frame of mind; for, on opening my study door, I was astonished to see both of them in my room.