“I thank you very much for what you have just said. But I really think that I shall be able to put up with anything these people may choose to say about me. It won’t hurt me, and I shouldn’t like you to sacrifice yourself to save me from the talk of such people. Let us go back to the house, please.”
He stared helplessly at her, and could not find his voice for a moment. At last he blurted out:
“It’s not because of that. I don’t care about them any more than you do. Don’t think it’s that, Miss Grant. Why—”
“Let us go back to the house, please,” she said quietly, “and don’t say anything more about it. And whatever happens, I must ask you to keep my name out of the affair altogether. You’ll do that, won’t you? Let us go back now, if you don’t mind.”
They walked back in silence. He looked at her once or twice, but her face was stern and rigid, and she would not give him even one glance. At the door she gave him her hand, with a matter-of-fact “I will say good-night now,” and disappeared into her room, where she threw herself on the bed and sobbed bitterly; for the truth was that she was very, very fond of him. She, too, had built her little castles in the air as to what she would say and do when he put the momentous question. Girls do foresee these things, somehow; although they do pretend to be astonished when the time arrives.
She had pictured him saying all sorts of endearing things, and making all sorts of loving protestations; and now it had come to this—she had been asked as if it were merely a matter of avoiding scandal. It was too great a shock. She lay silently crying, while Hugh, his castles in the air having crumbled around him, was trying in a dazed way to frame a letter to Mr. Grant.
His thoughts were anything but pleasant. What a fool he had been, talking to her like that! Making it look as if he had only proposed to her because he ought to protect her good name! Why hadn’t he spoken to her before—in the tree, on the ride home, any other time? Why hadn’t he spoken differently? To him the refusal seemed the end of all things. He thought of asking Mr. Grant to give him the management of the most out-back place he had, so that he could go away and bury himself. He even thought of resigning his position altogether and going to the goldfields. Red Mick and his delinquencies seemed but small matters now; and, after what had passed, he must, of course, see that Miss Grant was not dragged into the business. So he sat down and began to write.
The letter took a good deal of thinking over. It had got about the station that Red Mick had at last been caught in flagrante delicto; the house-cook had told the cook at the men’s hut, and he had told the mailman, who stopped on the road to tell the teamsters ploughing along with their huge waggons to Kiley’s Crossing; they told the publican at Kiley’s, and he told everybody he saw. The children made a sort of play out of it, the eldest boy personating Red Mick, while two of the younger ones hid in a fallen tree, and were routed out by Thomas Carlyle. The station-hands were all excitement; the prospect of a big law-case was a real godsend to them. To drop the matter would be equivalent to a confession of defeat, but, after what had passed, Hugh had no option. So he told Mr. Grant that, on thinking it over, he did not consider it advisable to go on with the case against Red Mick; Miss Grant would have to go into the box to give evidence, which would be very unpleasant for her.
Poor Hugh! He was too honourable to give any false reason, and too shy to tell the whole truth. If he had said that there was no hope of a conviction, it would have been all right. But consideration for the feelings of anyone, even his own daughter, was to Billy the Bully quite incomprehensible, and he wrote back, on a letter-card, “Go on with the prosecution.”
This put Hugh in a frightful dilemma. He had no trouble whatever in making up his mind to disobey the order, as he was bound to stand by his promise to Miss Grant. But what answer should he send to her father? He was in a reckless mood, but he knew well enough that Grant would order him off the place, neck and crop, if he dared to disobey; and he owed it to his mother and sister to avoid such a thing. The more he looked at the position of affairs, the less he liked it. He wrote a dozen letters, and tore them up again.