"I have come _to-night, from_ my sister," was the calm, but somewhat emphasized reply.
"Indeed!" with a nervous uncertainty in his tone, which had not been perceptible in his former utterance. "She, Mary, told you, I suppose, of that most wretched meeting this afternoon."
"She did," Arthur Seaham again coldly replied; "and it was the nature of that meeting which made her desirous to communicate with you, through me, feeling herself unequal to treat the subject, as fully and satisfactorily as she had wished, by letter."
He again paused; and Trevor fixed his eyes upon the young man's face in anxious, agitated inquiry.
"You cannot suppose," Arthur continued, with an effort at calm moderation in his tone, "that the interview to which you allude was calculated much to raise my sister's spirits, or throw much light on her present clouded and uncertain prospects."
"You are quite right," he muttered gloomily, a darkness gathering over his brow; "and it is but natural that you, her brother, should require, and demand, further explanation and satisfaction."
"_That_, I again repeat, is not the point which brought me here on _this occasion_," Arthur rejoined. "I come, bound by a promise to my sister, to speak and act this night, as in her name and person, therefore, you can rest well assured," with a mingling of bitterness and tender feeling in his tone, "that in her case no explanation or satisfaction is required. No, rather, I have to assure you, that her trust and confidence still remain unmoved, and only for your own sake does she now desire and propose, that matters should be put on a more defined and certain footing; either that she should not be suffered to stand any longer in the way of your happiness or advantage, by the continuance of your now vague and uncertain engagement, or----"
But Trevor, with much eager agitation, at this point interrupted him.
"Mary--your sister," he exclaimed, "she surely cannot, does not wish to give me up?"
The brother looked steadily into the speaker's face, as if to ascertain that the emotion, which by his tone and manner bespoke the excitement this suggestion had caused, was truthfully imaged there; and on the whole he was not dissatisfied by the inspection; at least, if the deep glow first overspreading his brow, and then the ashy paleness succeeding, could be interpreted as corresponding signs of feeling; and he replied, though with something of suppressed bitterness: