A glance from her bright eyes and a quiver of the charming mouth filled quite eloquently the pause which the young lady made in her speech. Oswald was still unable to adapt himself at once to the situation. He had expected Helen, he found Emily--Emily, whose enchanting, coquettish beauty reminded him so forcibly of some of the most delightful and yet most painful scenes in the confused drama of his life--Emily, whom he had intended to meet with a tragic resolve of resignation! And now he was expected of a sudden to play the part of a lover! He felt a very decided conviction that he must give the young lady some answer or other, but the varied sensations which he experienced overcame him so entirely that he in vain sought for words. "Why did you not call, as you promised the other day?" continued Emily, somewhat disheartened by this silence of her knight, in the tone of a spoilt child who cannot get the toy she desires, and who therefore is on the point of breaking into tears. "Is it right not to comply with the request--the harmless request--of a lady, and thus compel her to take a step which she can hardly excuse to herself, much less to the judgment of the world?" Oswald stepped back unconsciously, and replied in a half serious half ironical tone: "It seems, madame, to be my fate to embarrass you always by my plebeian want of knightly gallantry." He had hardly uttered these words when he would have given a world to take them back. Emily's lovely face, which had until now beamed with rosy smiles, became deadly pale. Her large eyes grew still larger and rigid, like the eyes of one who has to suffer an intense physical or mental pain; her pale lips trembled convulsively, as if she wished to say something and could not find the strength to do so. Her whole body trembled, and she grasped the back of a chair. He had not meant to wound her so deeply. Oswald was ashamed of his cruelty, especially as he was by no means so much in earnest with the Catonic severity which he had displayed. He went up to Emily; he seized her hand and held it, although she made a feeble effort to draw it away; he conjured her in passionate words to forgive him; he swore he repented of what he had said; his heart was sick, his head confused, his lips often said what his head and his heart did not wish to be said; she ought to give him time to recover and to justify himself before his own heart and before her.