"I have no right to save her from anything. She must forget me."
"That is sheer nonsense—cowardly nonsense too!" said Mrs. Vane. "If Enid were on the brink of a precipice, would you hesitate to draw her back? I tell you that she is breaking her heart for you, and that, if you are free to marry, and not inordinately selfish, your only way out of the difficulty is to marry her."
"She would get over it."
"No; she would die as her mother died—of a broken heart."
"You can speak so calmly, remembering who killed her mother—for what you and I are responsible!"
"Look, Hubert—if you cannot speak calmly yourself, you had better not speak at all. You seem to think that I am cold and callous. I suppose I am; and yet I am more anxious in this matter to keep Enid from grief and pain than you seem to be. I do not like to see her looking pale and sad. I would do anything within my power to help her, and I thought—I thought that you would do the same. It seems that you shrink from the task."
"It is so horrible—so unnatural! How can I ask her to be mine—I, with my hands stained——"
"Hush! I will not have you say those words! We both know—if we are to speak of the past—that it was an honorable contest enough—a fair fight—a meeting such as no man of honor could refuse. You would have fallen if he had not. It is purely morbid, this brooding over the consequences of your actions. Everybody who knew the circumstances would have said that you were in the right. I say it myself, although at my own cost. To marry Enid now because she loves you will be the only way you can take to repair the harm that was done in the past and to shield her for the future."
It was not often that Florence spoke so long or so energetically; and Hubert, in spite of his revolt of feeling at the prospect held out to him, was impressed by her words. After a few moments' silence, he sat down again and began to argue the matter with her from every possible point of view. He told her it was probable that Enid did not know her own mind; that she would be miserable if she married a man who could not love her; that the whole world would cry shame on him if it ever learned the circumstances of her father's death; that Enid herself would be the first to reproach him, and would indeed bitterly hate him if she ever knew.
"If she ever knew—if the world ever knew!" said Florence scornfully. Hitherto she had been very quiet and let her brother say his say. "As if she or the world were ever going to know! There is no way in which the truth can be known unless one of us tells it; and I ask you, is that a thing that either of us is very likely to do? It would mean social ruin for us—utter and irretrievable ruin! If we only hold our tongues, Enid and the world will never know."