"
"Love acknowledges no law but itself, Mr. Wardour," answered Tom,
inspired by the dignity of his honest affection for Letty. "Miss
Lovel is not your property. I love her, and she loves me. I would
do my best to see her, if Thornwick were the castle of Giant
Blunderbore."
"Why not walk up to the house, like a man, in the daylight, and
say you wanted to see her?"
"Should I have been welcome, Mr. Wardour?" said Tom,
significantly. "You know very well what my reception would have
been; and I know better than throw difficulties in my own path.
To do as you say would have been to make it next to impossible to
see her."
"Well, we must find her now anyhow; and you must marry her off-
hand."
"Must!" echoed Tom, his eyes flashing, at once with anger at the
word and with pleasure at the proposal. "Must?" he repeated,
"when there is nothing in the world I desire or care for but to
marry her? Tell me what it all means, Mr. Wardour; for, by
Heaven! I am utterly in the dark."
"It means just this--and I don't know but I am making a fool of
myself to tell you--that the girl was seen in your company late
last night, and has been neither seen nor heard of since."
"My God!" cried Tom, now first laying hold of the fact; and with
the word he turned and started for the stable. His run, however,
broke down, and with a look of scared bewilderment he came back
to Godfrey.
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