“Oh, Wilton!—­” was her only reply; but she left her hand in his, and he went on.

“You had just spoken, when we were interrupted,” he said, “words that made me very, very happy, though they were coupled with expressions of fear and apprehension.  I have nothing to tell you, dear Laura, that can altogether remove those fears and apprehensions, but I can say something, perhaps, that may mitigate them.  You are not aware of the circumstances in which I have had the happiness of seeking you and finding you this night; but you doubtless heard me mention, that it was your father who intrusted me with the search; and surely, dear Laura, that must show no slight trust and confidence on his part—­may I add, no slight regard.”

“Oh, I am sure he feels that for you,” replied Laura, “quite sure! but yet such a trust shows, indeed, far more regard than I knew he entertained, and that gives me some degree of hope.  Still, I cannot judge, Wilton, unless I had seen the manner in which my father did it.  You must tell me all that has been done and said in this unfortunate business:  you must tell me everything that has occurred.  Will you?—­and I will tell you, upon my word, exactly what the impression is that it all makes upon my mind.”

Wilton had not spoken of their love; Laura had not mentioned the subject either; but they had done fully as much, they had referred to it as a thing known and acknowledged.  Wilton had recalled words that had made him very happy, and Laura had spoken of hopes which could only apply to her union with himself.

He now, however, told her all that had occurred, briefly though clearly.  He dwelt not, indeed, on his own feelings during the painful events lately past; but the few words that he did speak on that subject were of such a kind as to show Laura instantly the distress and anxiety which her disappearance had caused him, the agony that he had suffered when he thought that she was lost to him for ever.  The whole of her father’s conduct, as displayed by Wilton, seemed to her strange and unaccountable; and well it might do so! for her lover told her the terrible state of mind in which the Duke had been at first, and yet he did not think fit to explain, in any degree, the causes which he felt sure had prevented her father from joining in the search himself.  Notwithstanding all that had taken place in the presence of Laura, he judged it far better to avoid any mention of the unfortunate hold which Sir John Fenwick had obtained over the Duke, by drawing him in to take a share, however small, in the great Jacobite conspiracy of the day.

Laura, then, was greatly surprised at all she heard; and that Wilton should be employed in the affair seemed to her not the least strange part of the whole business.  An expression of this surprise, however, induced Wilton to add, what he still in some degree feared, and had long hesitated to say.