“Will you promise to come away if you find you’ve made a mistake?”
“I promise.”
“Then Cousin Bertie ought to let you go,” declared Rosamund, sick with misery. “If it’s the only thing that will make you happy.”
For answer Frances began to cry again, piteously and silently, as she used to cry when a child.
Rosamund, with the same despairing instinct of rebellion and impotent protection that had been hers in the days when she had resisted Bertha Tregaskis’ kindness to the little orphan sisters, put her arms round Frances.
“Don’t cry,” she whispered. “I’ll go to Cousin Frederick, and he must make Cousin Bertie give in. They’ve no real right to forbid you.”
She sought Frederick Tregaskis in the study which had become his almost permanent refuge from the strained atmosphere now prevalent at Porthlew.
He looked up angrily, and her heart failed her, but she began steadily enough.
“I’ve come to speak to you about Frances——”
“I don’t wish to hear you. Everyone comes to speak to me about Frances. When I come into this room, it is in order to avoid being spoken to about Frances.”