“We must hope for that,” he said. “I suppose I ought not to insist on a fuller explanation just now. But I cannot risk any repetition of such scenes, for Miss Brooke’s own sake.”
“No, sir. You shall not have to blame me again.”
“How if you prove weak and easily overcome a second time, Marian?”
She straightened herself, and smiled dimly.
“There’s strength for the weak, and I’m safer now I don’t count myself to be strong,” she said. “No, I shall not be overcome again. I know now what I have to bear, and the sorrow I’ve brought on myself has to be borne with patience. It’s no easy matter, but it must be done. I’d offer to leave, and go back to my father’s, but I do think Mrs. Rutherford would feel it. She seems to depend on me so. It would be easier for me to go than to stay; only I can’t think it right. But you must decide, sir. They all look to you now.”
“I think we must not make any sudden changes,” said Leo gravely.
[CHAPTER XIX.]
ABOUT THE FUTURE.
JOAN did not go upstairs to see Dulcibel. Nessie and Leonard would fain have persuaded her, but entreaties were thrown away. Joan seemed to be in the overmastering grasp of one desire—to get away from the Hall and back to George Rutherford with all possible expedition.
“No, no, no—not to-day,” she said impatiently, when Leo suggested Dulcibel’s disappointment. “Mother will not really care; and I can’t—I can’t. I might come across that woman again. Some other time I can see mother—not now—not to-day. Do let me go.”