Wyndham, who could have given one very excellent reason for his wish, remains determinedly silent.
‘You see,’ cries she triumphantly, ‘you have no reason at all, and I am ever so much happier by myself! I don’t say but that, if I were somebody else, I should not like to go into that garden there’—pointing towards the Rectory—‘but as it is, it would frighten me to step outside the gate.’
‘And how long is this state of things to go on?’ asks Wyndham—‘until you are ninety?’
‘Ah, he can’t live till then,’ says she; ‘and, besides, long before that I shall be old and ugly, and he won’t care. You know’—growing crimson—‘what I told you.’
‘Yes.’ Wyndham frowns. ‘You told me enough to know he was a most infernal scoundrel.’
‘I suppose he is that,’ says she thoughtfully. ‘Though I don’t think really he would ever murder anybody. You see, he didn’t even murder me. He only wanted to marry me! That was what made me so angry. If he had made me marry him’—turning to Wyndham with a quick, sharp movement—‘you think that would mean that I should have to live with him always?’
She pauses as if eager for an answer, and when he does not speak, she says imperatively:
‘Well?’
Wyndham nods his head.
‘It wouldn’t, however,’ says she with angry emphasis. ‘I’d have run away after I was married, just the same. Only I thought it better to do it before.’