‘I shall certainly not do that,’ says he gravely. ‘But why speak if you need not?’
‘I don’t know.’ She pauses, clasping her hands tightly together, and then at last, ‘I want to tell you.’
‘Well, tell me,’ says Wyndham gently.
‘The name of the people I lived with was Moore,’ says she, speaking at once and rapidly, as if eager to get rid of what she has volunteered to tell. ‘They called me Moore, too—Ella Moore—though I know, I am sure, I did not belong to them.’
‘Ella?’
‘Yes, Ella; I think’—hesitatingly—‘that is my real Christian name, because far, far back someone’—pressing her hand to her head, as though trying to remember—‘used to call me Elly, someone who was not Mrs. Moore. It was not her voice. And Moore—that is not my name, I know.’ Her tone has grown quite firm. ‘Mrs. Moore always called herself my aunt; but I don’t think she was anything to me. She was kind sometimes, however, and I was sorry when she died. She had a husband, and I lived with them ever since I can remember anything.’
‘Perhaps you were Mr. Moore’s niece.’
‘Oh, not that!’ She grows very pale, and makes a quick gesture of repulsion with her hands. ‘Not that. No, thank God!’ She pauses, and he can see that she has begun to tremble as if at some dreadful thought. ‘She, Mrs. Moore, died two months ago, and after that he—she was hardly in her grave—and he—Oh, it is horrible!’—burying her face in her hands. ‘But he—he told me he wanted to marry me.’ She struggles with herself for a moment, and then bursts into wild tears. One can see that the tears are composed of past cruel memories, of outraged pride as well as grief.
‘Oh, monstrous!’ says Wyndham hurriedly. He begins to pace rapidly up and down the walk, coming back to her when he finds her more composed.
‘It is true, though,’ cries she miserably. ‘Oh, how I hate to think of it!’—emphatically. ‘When I said no, that I’d rather die than marry him—and I would—he was furious. A fortnight afterwards he spoke to me again, saying he had ordered the banns to be called; and when I again said I would never consent, he locked me in a room, and said he would starve me to death unless I gave in. I’—clenching her small white teeth—‘told him I would gladly starve in preference to that. And for three nights and two days I did starve. He brought me nothing; but I did not see him, and that kept me alive. On the third day he came again, and again I defied him, and then—then—’ She cowers away from Wyndham, and the hot flush of shame dyes her cheek. ‘Then—he beat me.’