CHAPTER XXXIX. FEIGNING.
The next morning, Mr. Mirabel took two members of the circle at Monksmoor by surprise. One of them was Emily; and one of them was the master of the house.
Seeing Emily alone in the garden before breakfast, he left his room and joined her. “Let me say one word,” he pleaded, “before we go to breakfast. I am grieved to think that I was so unfortunate as to offend you, last night.”
Emily’s look of astonishment answered for her before she could speak. “What can I have said or done,” she asked, “to make you think that?”
“Now I breathe again!” he cried, with the boyish gayety of manner which was one of the secrets of his popularity among women. “I really feared that I had spoken thoughtlessly. It is a terrible confession for a clergyman to make—but it is not the less
