“Because he loves you himself,” said he between his teeth—“if the feeling even you inspire in such a man can be called love. Your innocence would not have protected you much longer. Oh, I was a fool, a blind fool, ever to leave you, for father—mother—anybody in the world! But I did not know quite all until your own sweet naïve letter opened my stupid eyes.”
“Oh, Laurence, Laurence, what dreadful things are you saying?” I cried, shaking with fear even in his arms.
“Never mind, my own darling; you are safe now,” said he very gently. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I ought to have warned you long ago; but I could not bear to—”
“But, Laurence, my mother is going with us. Didn’t I tell you that? I had a letter from her—”
“Which she never wrote. On my way back to London, I telegraphed to your mother to meet me at Charing Cross Station, and there she told me she had never seen Mr. Rayner and never heard a word of the journey to Monaco.”
This blow was too much for me; I fainted in his arms. When I recovered, I found that he had carried me some distance; and, as soon as I began to sigh, he put me down and gave me some brandy-and-water out of his flask.
“I’m always wanting that now, I think,” said I, trying weakly to smile as I remembered that two or three times lately Mr. Rayner had given it to me when I seemed to be on the point of fainting. “You are the first person who has made me go off quite, though,” I said.
And poor Laurence took it as a reproach, and insisted on our stopping again in the fog for me to forgive him. We were making our way slowly, in the increasing darkness, down the lane to the high-road.
“But what am I to do, Laurence?” I asked tremblingly. “Shall I tell Mr. Rayner—oh, I can’t think he is so wicked!—shall I tell him you have come back, and don’t want me to leave England?”
“Not for the world, my darling,” said he, quickly. “Nobody in Geldham—not even at the Hall—knows I have come back. That is why I had to send for you on a pretext, and frighten you out of your life. The boy I sent for you did not know me. I got here in a fly from the station only a few minutes before I met him, and sent him off with the promise of a shilling if he brought you back with him.”