“She—I love her,” Aynesworth answered. “I mean her to be my wife.”
“And she?”
“She looks upon me as her greatest friend, her natural protector, and protect her I will—even against you.”
Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.
“It seems to me,” he said, “that the young lady is very well off as she is. She has lived in my house, and been taken care of by my servants. She has been relieved of all the material cares of life, and she has been her own mistress. I scarcely see how you, my young friend, could do better for her.”
Aynesworth moved a step nearer to him. The veins on his forehead were swollen. His voice was hoarse with passion.
“Why have you done this for her?” he demanded, “secretly, too, you a man to whom a good action is a matter for a sneer, who have deliberately proclaimed yourself an evil-doer by choice and destiny? Why have you constituted yourself her guardian? Not from kindness for you don’t know what it is; not from good nature for you haven’t any. Why, then?”
Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.
“I admit,” he remarked coolly, “that it does seem rather a problem; we all do unaccountable things at times, though.”
“For your own sake,” Aynesworth said fiercely, “I trust that this is one of the unaccountable things. For the rest, you shall have no other chance. I shall take her to Truro tonight.”