He
rose mechanically, gave inarticulate utterance to the pleasure he did
not feel, and took his seat beside the unhappy girl, who shrank
visibly into her corner.
"Admirable!" exclaimed Lady Sarah, softly stepping out to witness the
unusual phenomenon of Edward and Helene driving away together. "I
never supposed a man _could_ have so much sagacity and foresight. Here
have I been cudgelling my brains to keep those two from playing hide
and seek--no, hide and _avoid_--ever since they came, and now you
accomplish it in the easiest and most natural way in the world. See
what it is to have a clever husband! How did you happen to think of
those important dispatches?"
Emphasis would indicate too coarsely the delicate stress laid upon the
last two words. The gentleman looked extremely puzzled.
"_Happen_ to think? I am _obliged_ to think of them."
"Really? What a lucky accident! So you are not the sly designing
schemer I supposed. Ah, well, you are the soul of honour, and that is
infinitely better."
Certainly to her mind in the present case that was what appearances
would seem to indicate; but the poor wretches who were tending slowly
toward the brink of some indefinable horror, more awful to their
imaginations than the great cataract itself, thought not so much upon
the means by which they were brought into their present painful
position, as upon the impossibility of escape from it.
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