"Then why delay it at all? Why not next week—next month, at latest? What is there to wait for?"
They were sitting in the little school-room, or study, as it was called, near the front door—the very room in which Elizabeth had talked with Brian on the night of his arrival at Strathleckie. The remembrance of that conversation prompted her reply.
"Oh, no," she said, in a tone of almost agonised entreaty. "Percival, have a little mercy. Not yet—not yet."
His face hardened: his keen eyes fixed themselves relentlessly upon her white face. He was sitting upon the sofa: she standing by the fireplace with her hands clasped tightly before her. For a minute he looked at her thus, and then he spoke.
"You said just now that it was all the same to you. May I ask what you mean?"
"There is no need to ask me," she said, resolutely, although, her pale lips quivered. "You know what I mean. I will marry you before Christmas, if you like; but not with such—such indecent haste as you propose. Not this month, nor next."
"In December then?"
"Yes."
"You promise? Even if this man—this tutor—should come back?"
"I suppose I have given you a right to doubt me, Percival," she said. "But I have never broken my word—never! From the first, I only promised to try to love you; and, indeed, I tried."