But while I considered in what manner I could best frame my request, my companion wakened from her reverie with a scarcely audible sigh, and looking towards the window where the blood-red harvest moon, just rising over one of the grim, fantastic evergreens, was shining in upon us, said,—
"Gilbert, it is getting late."
"I see," said I. "You want me to go, I suppose."
"I think you ought. If my kind neighbours get to know of this visit—as no doubt they will—they will not turn it much to my advantage."
It was with what the Vicar would doubtless have called a savage sort of a smile that she said this.
"Let them turn it as they will," said I. "What are their thoughts to you or me, so long as we are satisfied with ourselves—and each other. Let them go to the deuce with their vile constructions, and their lying inventions!"
