The agitation in which Walkinshaw was at the moment when he encountered Robina, prevented him from being surprised at meeting her, and also from suspecting the cause which had taken her to that particular place so late in the evening. The young lady was more cool and collected, as we believe young ladies always are on such occasions, and she was the first who spoke.

‘Where are you running so fast?’ said she. ‘I thought you would have stayed tea. Will you not go back with me? My mother expects you.’

‘Your father does not,’ replied Walkinshaw tersely; ‘and I wish it had been my fortune never to have set my foot within his door.’

‘Dear me!’ exclaimed Miss Robina, as artfully as if she had known nothing, nor overheard every word which had passed. ‘What has happened? I hope nothing has occurred to occasion any quarrel between you. Do think, James, how prejudicial it must be to your interests to quarrel with my father.’

‘Curse that eternal word “interests”!’ was the unceremonious answer. ‘Your father seems to think that human beings have nothing but interests; that the heart keeps a ledger, and values everything in pounds sterling. Our best affections, our dearest feelings, are with him only as tare, that should pass for nothing in the weight of moral obligations.’

‘But stop,’ said Robina, ‘don’t be in such a hurry; tell me what all this means—what has affections and dear feelings to do with your counting-house affairs?—I thought you and he never spoke of anything but rum puncheons and sugar cargoes.’

‘He is incapable of knowing the value of anything less tangible and vendible!’ exclaimed her cousin—‘but I have done with both him and you.’

‘Me!’ cried Miss Robina, with an accent of the most innocent admiration, that any sly and shrewd miss of eighteen could possibly assume.—‘Me! what have I to do with your hopes and your affections, and your tangible and vendible commodities?’

‘I beg your pardon, I meant no offence to you, Robina—I am overborne by my feelings,’ said Walkinshaw; ‘and if you knew what has passed, you would sympathize with me.’

‘But as I do not,’ replied the young lady coolly, ‘you must allow me to say that your behaviour appears to me very extravagant—surely nothing has passed between you and my father that I may not know?’

This was said in a manner that instantly recalled Walkinshaw to his senses. The deep and cunning character of his cousin he had often before remarked—with, we may say plainly, aversion—and he detected at once in the hollow and sonorous affectation of sympathy with which her voice was tuned, particularly in the latter clause of the sentence, the insincerity and hypocrisy of her conduct.—He did not, however, suspect that she had been playing the eavesdropper; and, therefore, still tempered with moderation his expression of the sentiments she was so ingeniously leading him on to declare.

‘No,’ said he, calmly, ‘nothing has passed between your father and me that you may not know, but it will come more properly from him, for it concerns you, and in a manner that I can never take interest or part in.’

‘Concerns me! concerns me!’ exclaimed the actress; ‘it is impossible that anything of mine could occasion a misunderstanding between you.’

‘But it has,’ said Walkinshaw; ‘and to deal with you, Robina, as you ought to be dealt with, for affecting to be so ignorant of your father’s long-evident wishes and intents—he has actually declared that he is most anxious we should be married.’

‘I can see no harm in that,’ said she, adding dryly, ‘provided it is not to one another.’

‘But it is to one another,’ said Walkinshaw, unguardedly, and in the simplicity of earnestness, which Miss perceiving, instantly with the adroitness of her sex turned to account—saying with well-feigned diffidence,—

‘I do not see why that should be so distressing to you.’

‘No!’ replied he. ‘But the thing can never be, and it is of no use for us to talk of it—so good night.’

‘Stay,’ cried Robina,—‘what you have told me deserves consideration.—Surely I have given you no reason to suppose that in a matter so important, I may not find it my interest to comply with my father’s wishes.’

‘Heavens!’ exclaimed Walkinshaw, raising his clenched hands in a transport to the skies.

‘Why are you so vehement?’ said Robina.

‘Because,’ replied he solemnly, ‘interest seems the everlasting consideration of our family—interest disinherited my father—interest made my uncle Walter consign my mother to poverty—interest proved the poor repentant wretch insane—interest claims the extinction of all I hold most precious in life—and interest would make me baser than the most sordid of all our sordid race.’

‘Then I am to understand you dislike me so much, that you have refused to accede to my father’s wishes for our mutual happiness?’

‘For our mutual misery, I have refused to accede,’ was the abrupt reply—‘and if you had not some motive for appearing to feel otherwise—which motive I neither can penetrate nor desire to know, you would be as resolute in your objection to the bargain as I am—match I cannot call it, for it proceeds in a total oblivion of all that can endear or ennoble such a permanent connexion.’

Miss was conscious of the truth of this observation, and with all her innate address, it threw her off her guard, and she said,—

‘Why do you suppose that I am so insensible? My father may intend what he pleases, but my consent must be obtained before he can complete his intentions.’ She had, however, scarcely said so much, when she perceived she was losing the vantage-ground that she had so dexterously occupied, and she turned briskly round and added, ‘But, James, why should we fall out about this?—there is time enough before us to consider the subject dispassionately—my father cannot mean that the marriage should take place immediately.’

‘Robina, you are your father’s daughter, and the heiress of his nature as well as of his estate—no such marriage ever can or shall take place; nor do you wish it should—but I am going too far—it is enough that I declare my affections irrevocably engaged, and that I will never listen to a second proposition on that subject, which has to-night driven me wild. I have quitted your father—I intend it for ever—I will never return to his office. All that I built on my connexion with him is now thrown down—perhaps with it my happiness is also lost—but no matter, I cannot be a dealer in such bargaining as I have heard to-night. I am thankful to Providence that gave me a heart to feel better, and friends who taught me to think more nobly. However, I waste my breath and spirits idly; my resolution is fixed, and when I say Good night, I mean Farewell.’

With these words he hurried away, and, after walking a short time on the lawn, Robina returned into the house; and going up to her mother’s apartment, where her father was sitting, she appeared as unconcerned and unconscious of the two preceding conversations, as if she had neither been a listener to the one, nor an actress in the other.

On entering the room, she perceived that her father had been mentioning to her mother something of what had passed between himself and her cousin; but it was her interest, on account of the direction which her affections had taken, to appear ignorant of many things, and studiously to avoid any topic with her father that might lead him to suspect her bent; for she had often observed, that few individuals could be proposed to him as a match for her that he entertained so strong a prejudice against; although really, in point of appearance, relationship, and behaviour, it could hardly be said that the object of her preference was much inferior to her romantic cousin. The sources and motives of that prejudice she was, however, regardless of discovering. She considered it in fact as an unreasonable and unaccountable antipathy, and was only anxious for the removal of any cause that might impede the consummation she devoutly wished. Glad, therefore, to be so fully mistress of Walkinshaw’s sentiments as she had that night made herself, she thought, by a judicious management of her knowledge, she might overcome her father’s prejudice;—and the address and dexterity with which she tried this we shall attempt to describe in the following chapter.