Miss Merriman had been looking at him curiously, and she
now turned to her mother and said something in a tone inaudible to
Desmond.
"La! you don't say so, my dear," exclaimed the lady.
"Why. Mr. Burke, my daughter tells me that we have met you before."
His vague recollection of Mrs. Merriman's voice being thus so suddenly
confirmed, he recalled, as from a far distant past, a scene upon Hounslow
Heath; a coach that stood perilously near the ditch, a girl at the
horses' heads, a lady stamping her foot at two servants wrestling in
drunken stupidity on the ground.
"You never gave us an opportunity of thanking you," continued Mrs.
Merriman. "'Twas not kind of you, Mr. Burke, to slip away thus without a
word after doing two poor lone women such a service."
"Indeed, ma'am, 'twas with no discourteous intention, but seeing you were
safe with your friends I--I--in short, ma'am--"
Desmond stopped in confusion, at a loss for a satisfactory explanation.
The ladies were smiling.
"You thought to flee our acknowledgments," said Mrs. Merriman. "La, la, I
know; I have a young brother of my own. But you shall not escape them
now, and what is more, I shall see that Merriman, poor man, adds his, for
I am sure he has forgiven you your exploit."
The younger lady laughed outright, while Desmond looked from one to the
other. What did they mean?
"Indeed, ma'am," he said, "I had no idea--"
"That there was need for forgiveness?" said the lady, taking him up.
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