"Perhaps so," said Hugo, carelessly. "If he said that she were, I should not be much inclined to believe him. After all these years of secrecy a man will say anything. But he told me last year that she was living."
Kitty laid down the paper with a sort of gasp and shiver. She murmured something to herself—it sounded like a prayer—"God help me!" or words to that effect—but she was quite unconscious of having spoken. Hugo took up the paper, and replaced it carefully in his pocket-book. He had held it in reserve for some time now; but he was not quite sure that it had done all its work.
"And now," he went on, "you see a part—not the whole—of my motives, Kitty. I had been raging in my heart against this fellow's insolence for long enough; I wanted to stop the slanderous tongues of the people who were talking about you; and I hoped—when you were so kind and gracious to me—that you meant to be my wife. Therefore, when I asked you and you refused me, I grew desperate. Believe me, Kitty, or not, as you choose, but my love for you has nearly maddened me. I could not leave you to lay yourself open to the world's contempt and scorn: I was afraid—afraid—lest Vivian should do you harm in the world's eyes, and so I tried to save you, dear, to save you from yourself and him—even against your own will, when I brought you here."
His eyes grew moist, and lost some of their wildness: he drew nearer, and ventured almost timidly to take her hand. She did not repulse him, and from her silence and motionlessness he gathered courage.
"I thought to myself," he said, "that here, at least, was a refuge: here was a man who loved you, and was ready to give you his home and his name, and show the world that he loved you in spite of all. Here was a chance for you, I thought, to show that you had not given your heart where it was not wanted; that you were not that pitiable object, a woman scorned. But you refused me. So then I took the law into my own hands. Was I so very wrong?"
He paused, and she suddenly burst out into wild hysterical sobs and tears.
"Let me go home," she said, between her sobs. "I will give you my answer then.... I will not forget! I will not be thoughtless and foolish any more.... But let me go home first: I must go home. I cannot stay here alone!"
"You cannot go home, Kitty," said Hugo, modulating his voice to one of extreme softness and sweetness. He knelt before her, and took both her hands in his. "You left Mrs. Baxter's yesterday afternoon—to meet me, you said. Where have you been since then?—that will be the first question. You cannot go home without me now: what would the world say? Don't you understand?"
"What does it matter what the world says? My father would know that it was all right," said Kitty, helplessly.
"Would your father take you in?" Hugo whispered. "Would he not rather say that you must have planned it all, that you were not to be trusted, that you had better have married me when I asked you? For, if you leave this house before you are my wife, Kitty, I shall not ask you again to marry me. Are you so simple as not to know why? You would be compromised: that is all. You need not have obliged me to tell you so."