Eugenia sat back in the chaise with a handkerchief to her eyes. He stopt the vehicle, and told Bellamy he must speak with that lady. 'That lady, Sir,' he proudly answered, 'is my wife; speak to her, therefore; ... but in my hearing.' Eugenia at this dropt her handkerchief, and looked up. Her eyes were sunk into her head by weeping, and her face was a living picture of grief. Melmond loudly exclaimed: 'I come by the authority of her friends, and I demand her own account of this transaction.' 'We are now going to our friends,' replied he, 'ourselves, and we shall send them no messages.' He then ordered the postillion to drive on, telling him at his peril to stop no more; Eugenia, in a tone but just audible, saying: 'Adieu, Mr. Melmond! Adieu!'
To have risked his life in her rescue, at such a moment, seemed to him nothing, could he but more certainly have ascertained her own wishes, and real situation: but as she attempted neither resistance nor remonstrance, he concluded Bellamy spoke truth; and if they were married, he could not unmarry them; and if they were going to her friends, they were doing all he could now exact. He resolved, however, to follow, and if they should turn any other road, to call for assistance till he could investigate the truth.
They stopt occasionally for refreshments at the usual inns, and travelled no more in the dark; but Bellamy never lost sight of her; and Melmond, in watching, observed that she returned to the chaise with as little opposition as she quitted it, though weeping always, and never, for a voluntary moment, uncovering her face. Bellamy seemed always most assiduous in his attentions: she never appeared to repulse him, nor to receive from him any comfort.
On the second day's journey, just as Bellamy had handed her from the chaise, at the inn where they meant to dine, and which Melmond, as usual, entered at the same time, he saw Mr. Tyrold—hurrying, but so shaking he could scarcely support himself, from a parlour, whence he had seen them alight, into the passage. The eyes, ever downcast, of Eugenia, perceived him not, till she was clasped, in mute agony, in his arms. She then looked up, saw who it was, and fainted away. Bellamy, though he knew him not, supposed who he might be, and his reverend appearance seemed to impress him with awe. Nevertheless, he was himself seizing the now senseless Eugenia, to convey her to some room; when Mr. Tyrold, reviving from indignation, fixed his eyes upon his face, and said: 'By what authority, Sir, do you presume to take charge of my daughter?'—'By the authority,' he answered, 'of a husband.' Mr. Tyrold said no more; he caught at the arm of Melmond, though he had not yet seen who he was, and Bellamy carried Eugenia into the first vacant parlour, followed only by the woman of the house.
Melmond then, respectfully, and filled with the deepest commiseration, sought to make himself known to Mr. Tyrold; but he heard him not, he heeded no one; he sat down upon a trunk, accidentally in the passage where all this had passed, saying, but almost without seeming conscious that he spoke aloud: 'This, indeed, is a blow to break both our hearts!' Melmond then stood silently by, for he saw, by his folded hands and uplighted eyes, he was ejaculating some prayer: after which, with a countenance more firm, and limbs better able to sustain him, he rose, and moved towards the parlour into which the fainting Eugenia had been carried.
Melmond then again spoke to him by his name. He recollected the voice, turned to him, and gave him his hand, which was of an icy coldness. 'You are very kind, Mr. Melmond,' he said; 'my poor girl'—but stopt, checking what he meant to add, and went to the parlour-door.
It was locked. The woman of the house had left it, and said, the lady was recovered from her fit. Mr. Tyrold, from a thousand feelings, seemed unable to demand admission for himself: he desired Melmond to speak, and claim an audience alone for him with his daughter.
Bellamy opened the door with a look evidently humbled and frightened, yet affecting perfect ease. When Melmond made known his commission, Eugenia, starting up, exclaimed: 'Yes, yes! I will see my dear Father alone!—and O! that this poor frame might sink to rest on his loved bosom!'
'In a moment! in a moment!' cried Bellamy, motioning Melmond to withdraw; 'tell Mr. Tyrold he shall come in a moment.'
Melmond was forced to retreat; but heard him hastily say, as again he fastened the door, 'My life, O Eugenia! is in your hands—and is it thus you requite my ardent love and constancy?'