At last Godwin, whose disgust was unbounded at the fuss made over the returned prodigal, stepped in to say a necessary word for Deborah. Since his brother’s arrival, Godwin had been on very distant terms with her, having given Rees a colder welcome than she thought right. They had, therefore, not held any conversation together except of the most formal kind, when, finding, an one of his fortnightly visits, that she began to look pale and dull-eyed, he ordered her out for a walk in such an angry and peremptory tone that his mother backed up his command with coaxing words of entreaty.
“Yes, dear, go, do go,” said the old lady, who had now almost recovered from her paralytic stroke, but who had been, since that misfortune, more afraid of masculine wrath than ever. “Godwin is quite right. You do want a walk. Rees will let you go, I’m sure; he’s never selfish.”
The poor old lady really believed this; and Godwin’s grunt on hearing her ingenuous remark was not likely to undeceive her.
Rees, who was still confined a great deal to the house, gave an unwilling consent to Deborah’s going out “for an hour.”
“Only for an hour, mind,” he added, as she went out of the room. “I shan’t drink my tea unless you make it. I don’t want to be poisoned.”
“All right, Rees, only an hour,” sang out Deborah good-humoredly, as Godwin closed the door for her.
As soon as he had done so, Godwin walked over abruptly to the armchair in which Rees was leaning back.
“Do you know that you ought to be ashamed of yourself not to give more thought to that girl’s comfort?” he said, in what both Rees and his mother considered a cruelly sharp tone. “How is she to keep her health if she is stuck in the house all day attending to your fads?”
“Godwin, Godwin,” remonstrated Mrs. Pennant, shocked beyond measure at this irreverent treatment of her divinity, “you must not speak like that to our dear Rees! He knows there is nothing we would not, any of us, gladly do to help him to get well, and to wile away the tedious hours before he does get well.”
“You don’t quite seem to understand, Godwin, my boy,” said Rees, with a touch of haughtiness, holding up his hand languidly to stop his mother. “I should be the last man in the world to take advantage of any girl’s devotion to me. I am going to marry Deborah.”