Two flights of stairs and two only, separated Edgar's rooms from the library in which I hoped to find Orpha. But as I went down them step by step they seemed at one moment to be too many for my impatience and at another too few for a wise decision as to what I should say when I reached her. As so frequently before my heart and my head were opposed. I dared not yield to the instincts of the former without giving ear to the monitions of the latter. Edgar had renounced his claim, ungraciously, doubtless, but yet to all appearance sincerely enough. But he was a man of moods, guided almost entirely by impulses, and to-morrow, under a fresh stress of feeling, his mood might change, with unpleasant if not disastrous results. True, I might raise a barrier to any decided change of front on his part by revealing to Orpha what had occurred and securing her consent to our future union. But the indelicacy of any such haste was not in accord with the reverent feelings with which I regarded her; and how far I would have allowed myself to go had I found her in one of the rooms below, I cannot say, for she was not in any of them nor was she in the house, as Haines hastened to tell me when I rang for him.
The respite was a fortunate one perhaps; at least, I have always thought so; and accepting it with as much equanimity as such a disappointment would admit of, I decided to seek an interview with Mr. Jackson before I made another move. He was occupied when I entered his office, but we ultimately had our interview and it lasted long enough for considerable time to have elapsed before I turned again towards home. When I did, it was with the memory of only a few consecutive sentences of all he had uttered. These were the sentences:
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