The Garden Gate Misunderstanding — Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World

She is through the garden gate before breakfast, and Mr Macartney is on the path, still in mourning. He traced her through Berry Hill. The journey's only motive was to see her, to say that her help may be why he exists, and to return the money. His friend came from Paris. She refuses the paper until his affairs are more settled. Lord Orville has already searched the garden. Breakfast waited. He smiles about the magnet that draws him, and she, unable to invite Macartney into Mrs Beaumont's house or to refuse him, says she may walk again tomorrow. His face changes. He could never suppose she would make an appointment with a stranger, and then he admits he thought he heard one. She offers the circumstances. Mrs Selwyn's window ends the talk.

Merton and Coverley take the house to view the race ground, set for Thursday. She cannot get Orville alone. She writes that she cannot walk tomorrow, unwilling to risk his opinion and unwilling to slight a man whom poverty has made suspicious of contempt. The servant cannot find Macartney and says so in the parlour. Dinner is silent under Orville's eyes. Selwyn, told enough to excuse the note, calls Macartney an adventurer. Evelina will not publish his poverty. The confidence was given as sacred.

The note never arrived, so at dawn she goes to apologise and to stay two minutes. Orville is already at the gate. He would not have come if he had imagined she would be there so soon. He passes her. She cannot stand. He comes back from the window, puts her hand under his arm, and will not let her be the one who begs an enquiry. When she leaves, his unfinished question means the garden. She says her own room. Reminded of the promise, she asks to be released. Had it concerned only herself, she would have kept it. He answers coldly that a stranger's affairs do not interest him, and then he regrets the confidence he has lost.

She tells him only her part. Macartney had business, she could not bring him in, and she returned before he came. Villars is too far to ask, and there is nobody else. Orville wishes he were worthy of that place, kisses her hand, and asks if they are friends. The ladies come in. She is the happiest she has been, and she still does not know what Macartney will think of a gate she did not keep.