"He will say I was quite right. Dear, dear, DEAR Jim,"—slipping her hand through his arm, and basely descending from hauteur to coaxing,—"do say you will take me to him. It can't be wrong! Am I not going to be his wife in a month's time?"
Sir James moves a chair out of his way with most unnecessary vehemence.
"How that alters the case I can't see," he says, obstinately.
"You forsake me!" says Miss Peyton, her eyes filling with tears. "Do. I can't be much unhappier than I am, but I did depend on you, you were always so much my friend." Here two large tears run down her cheeks, and they, of course, decide everything.
"I will take you," he says, hastily. "To-day?—The sooner the better, I suppose."
"Yes; by the next train. Oh, how obliged to you I am! Dear Jim, I shall never forget it to you!"
This is supposed to be grateful to him, but it is quite the reverse.
"I think you are very foolish to go at all," he says, somewhat gruffly.
"Perhaps I am," she says, with a rueful glance. "But you cannot understand. Ah! if you loved, yourself, you could sympathize with me."