The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

A Strange Revenge.
" Otherwise you could
"
"Ask no questions, Mr Richard," she said in a softer
voice, " I am going to do what you wish, and consider what
you have said."
Richard, recalled from despair to the domain of hope,
could say nothing but gaze inquiringly at her face. But
she at once averted it.
" In the meantime," she resumed, " you will go and talk
the matter over with my father, and never see me again till
I sendfor yon r
" Give me one word of hope ?"
good night."
And she left him standing there, gazing after her
" Not now ;
retreating form till it was lost in the twilight.
"Mysterious, like her father," he said to himself as he
walked homewards, in a state of something like mental
confusion. Everything had turned out so different from
what he expected. Go and see her father ? Could it be
that she actually loved him, though she had been so cold
in her behaviour ?
Had he seen how Miss Somerton threw herself upon
her bed, and sobbed the sob of a great heart-ache, he
might have been able to answer the question.
'"And I can never marry him," she kept on saying.
"I must only break his heart—oh ! father do not ask m.e
to play this terrible part any longer !"
In the library the Professor sat with a contented smile
upon his face, wondering what kept Julia. Perhaps
Richard had not proposed. Anyhow, was he not lucky
in having a daughter who could play the part of second
conspirator so well ?
"Julia, is clever," he mused, " but unsuspicious, which is
a great virtue— a great virtue."