_ CHAPTER VIII. THE WOMAN BY THE HEARTH
Mrs. Home went back to the small house in Kentish Town, and Miss Harman sat on by her comfortable fire. The dainty lunch was brought in and laid on the table, the young lady did not touch it. The soft-voiced, soft-footed servant brought in some letters on a silver salver. They looked tempting letters, thick and bulgy. Charlotte Harman turned her head to glance at them but she left them unopened by her side. She had come in very hungry, from her visit to the publishers, and these letters which now lay so close had been looked forward to with some impatience, but now she could neither eat nor read. At last a pretty little timepiece which stood on a shelf over her head struck four, and a clock from a neighboring church re-echoed the sound. Almost at the same instant there came a tap at her room door.
"That is John," said Charlotte. She shivered a little. Her face had changed a good deal, but she rose from her seat and came forward to meet her lover.
"Ready, Charlotte?" he said, laying his two hands on her shoulders; then looking into her face he started back in some alarm. "My dear, my dearest, something has happened; what is the matter?"
This young woman was the very embodiment of truth. She did not dream of saying, "Nothing is the matter." She looked up bravely into the eyes she loved best in the world and answered,----
"A good deal is the matter, John. I am very much vexed and--and troubled."
"You will tell me all about it; you will let me help you?" said the lover, tenderly.
"Yes, John dear, but not to-night. I want to think to-night. I want to know more. To-morrow you shall hear; certainly to-morrow. No, I will not go out with you. Is my father in? Is Uncle Jasper in?"
"Your father is out, and your uncle is going. I left him buttoning on his great-coat in the hall."
"Oh! I must see Uncle Jasper; forgive me, I must see him for a minute."
She flew downstairs, leaving John Hinton standing alone, a little puzzled and a little vexed. Breathless she arrived in the hall to find her uncle descending the steps; she rushed after him and laid her hand on his shoulder.
"Uncle Jasper, I want you. Where are you going?"
"Hoity-toity," said the old gentleman, turning round in some surprise, and even dismay when he caught sight of her face. "I am going to the club, child. What next. I sent Hinton up to you. What more do you want?"
"I want you. I have a story to tell you and a question to ask you. You must come back."
"Lottie, I said I would have nothing to do with those books of yours, and I won't. I hate novels, and I hate novelists. Forgive me, child. I don't hate you; but if your father and John Hinton between them mean to spoil a fine woman by encouraging her to become that monster of nature, a blue-stocking, I won't help them, and that's flat. There now. Let me go."
"It is no fiction I want to ask you, Uncle Jasper. It is a true tale, one I have just heard. It concerns me and you and my father. It has pained me very much, but I believe it can be cleared up. I would rather ask you than my father about it, at least at first; but either of you can answer what I want to know; so if you will not listen to me I can speak to my father after dinner."
Uncle Jasper had one of those faces which reveal nothing, and it revealed nothing now. But the keen eyes looked hard into the open gray eyes of the girl who stood by his side.
"What thread out of that tangled skein has she got into her head?" he whispered to himself. Aloud he said, "I will come back to dinner, Charlotte, and afterwards you shall take me up to your little snuggery. If you are in trouble, my dear, you had better confide in me than in your father. He does not--does not look very strong."
Then he walked down the street; but when he reached his club he did not enter it. He walked on and on. He puzzling, not so much over his niece's strange words as over something else. Who was that woman who sat by Charlotte's hearth that day? _