‘No? What! not in the Long Meadow behind father’s house?’ he returned in astonishment.
‘I said if my people ever emigrated—which they never will do—that I would go with them as your wife; but that was only a conditional promise, and I’ve altered my mind since then. I shall never be anybody’s wife now.’
‘If I saw rightly last night, Nell, perhaps it will be as well. Who was the gentleman you met and talked with for so long? What is he to you? Where have you met him before? What had you to say to him?’
‘Which of your questions will you have answered first?’ asked Nell. ‘And what is it to you who I choose to talk to? Are you my master, or am I a child to be catechised after this fashion? I shall see and speak to whom I like, and I refuse to say anything more about it.’
‘Nell,’ said Hugh in a sorrowful voice, ‘when you told me your history I was truly sorry for you. I thought what a terrible thing it was that such a respectable girl should lower herself to the level of the lowest of her sex; but I believed it was a misfortune—a step into which you had been led with your eyes shut—and that you regarded it with horror and loathing. I must have thought so, you know, or I should never have proposed to make you my wife.’
‘Well, and what is all this tirade leading to?’ said Nell.
She felt sorry for Hugh, but not a bit ashamed of herself, and the impossibility of explaining the matter to him made her irritable and pert.
‘To a very sorrowful conclusion, Nell. I have seen, ever since this party of gentlemen and ladies came to the Hall, that you are altered. You have become restless and uneasy; you have refused to walk out with me any more; and you have avoided my company. I can only put two and two together, and draw my conclusions from that. I have often heard it said that if once a woman is led astray to lead what people call a “gay life,” she is never contented with a quiet, domestic existence again, but I was loath to believe it of you, who seemed so truly sorry for the past and all the shame and disgrace it had brought you. But what am I to think now? I see you with my own eyes meet a man who looked to me in the gloaming like a gentleman, and talk familiarly with him, and yet you won’t tell me his name, nor what your business was with him.’
‘No, I won’t,’ she replied determinedly, ‘because it is no concern of yours.’
‘But I say it is my concern, and the concern of everybody that has an interest in you, Nell. Where there is deceit there must be wrong. Do your father and mother know this gentleman, and of your meeting him? Did you tell them?’