Amethyst was a strong and resolute person, but she shuddered as she thought of the battle that lay before her. She had allowed the brilliant and delightful present to distract her mind from its issues, and to blind her eyes to the vanishing point of all her success. She had been so taken up with interests and amusements, and with the triumph of her beauty, that she had suffered herself to forget the nature of the act to which all was tending, had talked, and thought, and prepared for a worldly marriage, without allowing herself to realise what a marriage without love meant. The pomps and vanities of this wicked world had caught her in their toils.
So she had tied her own hands, and put herself in a false position, entangled herself in all sorts of counter obligations, which must be broken through at the cost of honour and faith.
When she turned round, not five minutes after Sylvester had left her, and saw Sir Richard Grattan coming into the room, she felt that in another five minutes all her power of resistance would be gone. She clasped her hands together behind her back, and stood straight up and waited. Sir Richard’s face was disturbed, and not quite that of an eager lover.
“Miss Haredale,” he said, in his harsh, full, resolute voice, “I have heard a good deal this morning to surprise me. But I am a man of honour, and in the face of these distressing circumstances, I come to renew the offer I have more than once made you, and I hope for a favourable answer.”
“You have laid us under great obligations,” said Amethyst, a little more proudly than she would have dared to speak, if he had not referred to his own honour.
“I have acted pretty much with my eyes open, though I did not know of this last—misfortune. I consider it all quite worth my while. It won’t be the last time, I dare say, that difficulties may arise, but I considered all that, or most of it, before I began to address you. I don’t consider that my credit is in any way affected by other people’s conduct. I have acted all through in the hope, the determination to win you, and, as my wife, no annoyances shall be suffered to approach you.”
“Sir Richard,” said Amethyst, “I wish to tell you the truth. I have been meaning to—to accept your proposals for a long time. Certainly I have given you reason to think I should. I have to tell you that I find, now, that it is utterly impossible. I beg your pardon. I have behaved very ill. But I cannot fulfil my intention.”
Sir Richard gave a great start.
“I know what this means,” he said abruptly; “some one has come between us. It is your old lover.”
“No,” said Amethyst, “the truth is your due. I refused Mr Leigh’s proposals. I solemnly assure you that you have no rival. There is no one else. I don’t prefer any one. But—it is myself. I have found out that I cannot return your feelings—I never told you that I could. And I know now that I could not make you a good wife. If I married only for the sake of outside things, all the good part of me would die out I never—never ought to have entertained the idea.”