‘It is not so,’ she interrupted me; ‘and you know it, Captain Norton. It is because he lives in a country where women are scarce, and men have few opportunities of choice; where a girl may pick up a husband who might remain for ever unmarried at home; where we are looked at on arrival much as though we were articles of sale, and often purchased for motives unworthy the name of love or honour or esteem. You cannot deny it, because it is true, and I am wretched;’ and with this Lionne buried her burning face in her hands.
‘But I can deny it!’ I exclaimed; ‘for if this is the case with some girls sent out to this country, it is not with all. Look at your cousin Janie; surely you would never speak of her in that strain.’
‘Janie came out to the care of her sister, her nearest relation,’ was the low reply.
‘And you have come out to your relations, Miss Anstruther; to friends who have but one wish, to see you happy and comfortable, and who would never dream of imputing such motives to an action which—’
‘Did you not dream of it?’ she retorted quickly, as she turned her glowing glance upon me. ‘What was the question that you put to Janie the second evening of my arrival. “If she doesn’t want to get married, what is she here for?” I ought not to have heard it, perhaps, but you spoke so loudly that it was impossible to avoid doing so. And do you think I didn’t feel it?’
She spoke so decidedly, and yet so mournfully, her eyes flashed with such proud indignant fire, whilst her figure seemed bowed beneath the weight of her humiliation, that I had nothing to say for myself; and having attempted some stammering reply, which ended very abruptly, found that she was speaking again, though more to herself than me, and felt myself constrained to be silent and attend.
‘I saw it from the first day I landed,’ she went on sadly. ‘I perceived in Mrs Grant’s insinuations, and the remarks of her lady friends, that I was supposed to have been sent out to India with but one object—to get a husband; and it sickened me. But when I came here,’ she added in a lower voice, ‘I hoped it would be different; I hoped that you and Janie, being so lately married, would look on love and marriage in a holier light—as something too far removed from earthly calculations to be made the subject of mere speculation or convenience.’
‘Oh, Miss Anstruther, forgive me!’ I exclaimed.
‘It is I who should have said those words, Captain Norton. You disappointed me, and I have disappointed you. You raised in me a demon of a temper, which I should have been ashamed to manifest, which I am now most heartily ashamed even to recall. And you have been very patient with me, very good and very gentlemanly. Please forgive me, in your turn.’
And she placed her hand firmly and warmly into mine.