"I can find that out for you easily enough. I shouldn't take an answer from him."
Again, for a fraction of a second, Mackenzie's face was deadly, but he said quietly to Cicely, "I have answered your question. Go on."
"You know why I did what you asked me," she said. "I thought you were offering me a freer life and that I should share in all your travels and dangers. You told me just before my brother came in that you didn't want me for that."
"I told you," said Mackenzie, speaking to her as if no one else had been in the room, "that you would have a freer life, but that I shouldn't risk your safety by taking you into dangerous places. I told you that I would do all that a man could do to protect and honour his chosen wife, and that's God's truth. I told you that I would make you happy. That I know I can do, and I will do. Your brother judges me by the fiddling little rules he and the like of him live by. He calls himself a gentleman, and says I'm not one. I know I'm not his kind of a gentleman. I've no wish to be; I'm something bigger. I've got my own honour. You know how I've treated you. Your own mother couldn't have been more careful of you. And so I'll treat you to the end of the chapter when you give me the right to. You can't go back now; it's too late. You see how this precious brother of yours looks at you, after what you have done. You'll be sorry if you throw yourself into his hands again. Show some pluck and send him about his business. You can trust yourself to me. You won't regret it."
The shadow of his spell was over her again. She hesitated once more and Dick's face became hard and angry. "Before you decide," he said, "let me tell you this, that if you do marry this fellow you will never come to Kencote again or see any of us as long as you live."
"You won't see your eldest brother," said Mackenzie. "I'll take care of that. But you will see those you want to see. I'll see to that too. It's time to end this. I keep you to your word. You said you were mine, and you meant it. I don't release you from your promise."
Cicely's calm broke down. "Oh, I don't know what to do," she cried. "I did promise."
"I keep you to your promise," said Mackenzie inexorably.
Then Jim, who had kept silence all this time, spoke at last. "Cicely," he said, "have you forgotten that you made me a promise?"
"O Jim," she said, without looking at him, "don't speak to me. I have behaved very badly to you."