“Mr. Elshaw, don’t trifle with me. You know the truth as well as I do. Not one day has passed since our marriage without Christian’s flaunting this girl and her perfections in my face; not one day has passed since our return from abroad without his either seeing her or making an effort to see her. Oh, I daresay you will say it was mean; but I have had him watched, and he has been at the farm at Hessel every day!”
“But what of that? He is her cousin, you know. He has always been used to see a great deal of her and of her father.”
“Oh, I know all about her father!” snapped Minnie. “And I know how likely any of the family are to go out to Hessel to see him! Don’t prevaricate, Mr. Elshaw. I had understood you never did anything of the kind. Can you pretend to doubt that they have gone away together?”
Bram was silent. He hung his head as if he had been the guilty person.
“Of course, you cannot,” went on the lady triumphantly. “Where has she got to go to? What friends has she to stay with? Who would she leave her father for except Christian? It seems she has never had the decency to hide that she was fond of him!”
“Don’t say that,” protested Bram gently. “Why should she hide it in the old days before he was married? There was no reason why she should. They were cousins; they were believed to be engaged. They would have been married if Mr. Cornthwaite had allowed it. Didn’t you know that?”
“Not in the way I’ve known it since, of course,” said Minnie bitterly. “Everything was kept from me. I heard of a boy-and-girl affection; that was all. The whole family are deceitful and untrustworthy. And Christian is the worst of them all. He doesn’t care for me a bit; he never, never did!”
And here at last she broke down, and began to cry piteously.
Bram, usually so tender-hearted, felt as if his heart was scorched up within him. He looked at her; he tried to speak kindly, tried to say reassuring things, to express a doubt, a hope, which he did not feel.
But she stopped him imperiously, snappishly.