--Why, if it were pain to you (as it must have been)
to break for this slight purpose the chain of habit forged through
two-and-twenty years, could you not let me know your wish, and beg me to
come to you?'
'There was not time, sir,' she rejoined. 'I took my resolution but
last night, and taking it, felt that I must not lose a day--a day! an
hour--in having speech with you.'
They had by this time reached the house. Mr Haredale paused for a
moment, and looked at her as if surprised by the energy of her manner.
Observing, however, that she took no heed of him, but glanced up,
shuddering, at the old walls with which such horrors were connected in
her mind, he led her by a private stair into his library, where Emma was
seated in a window, reading.
The young lady, seeing who approached, hastily rose and laid aside her
book, and with many kind words, and not without tears, gave her a warm
and earnest welcome. But the widow shrunk from her embrace as though she
feared her, and sunk down trembling on a chair.
'It is the return to this place after so long an absence,' said Emma
gently. 'Pray ring, dear uncle--or stay--Barnaby will run himself and
ask for wine--'
'Not for the world,' she cried.
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