’To complete my anxiety, my father is returned suddenly, and in high displeasure.  Our good hostess, as I learned from a bustling conversation between her housekeeper and her, had no expectation of seeing him for a week; but I rather suspect his arrival was no surprise to his friend Mr. Mervyn.  His manner to me was singularly cold and constrained, sufficiently so to have damped all the courage with which I once resolved to throw myself on his generosity.  He lays the blame of his being discomposed and out of humour to the loss of a purchase in the south-west of Scotland on which he had set his heart; but I do not suspect his equanimity of being so easily thrown off its balance.  His first excursion was with Mr. Mervyn’s barge across the lake to the inn I have mentioned.  You may imagine the agony with which I waited his return!  Had he recognized Brown, who can guess the consequence!  He returned, however, apparently without having made any discovery.  I understand that, in consequence of his late disappointment, he means now to hire a house in the neighbourhood of this same Ellangowan, of which I am doomed to hear so much; he seems to think it probable that the estate for which he wishes may soon be again in the market.  I will not send away this letter until I hear more distinctly what are his intentions.’

’I have now had an interview with my father, as confidential as, I presume, he means to allow me.  He requested me to-day, after breakfast, to walk with him into the library; my knees, Matilda, shook under me, and it is no exaggeration to say I could scarce follow him into the room.  I feared I knew not what.  From my childhood I had seen all around him tremble at his frown.  He motioned me to seat myself, and I never obeyed a command so readily, for, in truth, I could hardly stand.  He himself continued to walk up and down the room.  You have seen my father, and noticed, I recollect, the remarkably expressive cast of his features.  His eyes are naturally rather light in colour, but agitation or anger gives them a darker and more fiery glance; he has a custom also of drawing in his lips when much moved, which implies a combat between native ardour of temper and the habitual power of self-command.  This was the first time we had been alone since his return from Scotland, and, as he betrayed these tokens of agitation, I had little doubt that he was about to enter upon the subject I most dreaded.

’To my unutterable relief, I found I was mistaken, and that, whatever he knew of Mr. Mervyn’s suspicions or discoveries, he did not intend to converse with me on the topic.  Coward as I was, I was inexpressibly relieved, though, if he had really investigated the reports which may have come to his ear, the reality could have been nothing to what his suspicions might have conceived.  But, though my spirits rose high at my unexpected escape, I had not courage myself to provoke the discussion, and remained silent to receive his commands.