The impression which we have necessarily been long in describing, Lucy
felt in the glance of a moment, and had no sooner encountered the keen
black eyes of the stranger than her own were bent on the ground with a
mixture of bashful embarrassment and fear. Yet there was a necessity to
speak, or at last she thought so, and in a fluttered accent she began
to mention her wonderful escape, in which she was sure that the stranger
must, under Heaven, have been her father's protector and her own.
He seemed to shrink from her expressions of gratitude, while he replied
abruptly, "I leave you, madam," the deep melody of his voice rendered
powerful, but not harsh, by something like a severity of tone--"I leave
you to the protection of those to whom it is possible you may have this
day been a guardian angel."
Lucy was surprised at the ambiguity of his language, and, with a feeling
of artless and unaffected gratitude, began to deprecate the idea of
having intended to give her deliverer any offence, as if such a thing
had been possible. "I have been unfortunate," she said, "in endeavouring
to express my thanks--I am sure it must be so, though I cannot recollect
what I said; but would you but stay till my father--till the Lord Keeper
comes; would you only permit him to pay you his thanks, and to inquire
your name?"
"My name is unnecessary," answered the stranger; "your father--I would
rather say Sir William Ashton--will learn it soon enough, for all the
pleasure it is likely to afford him.
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