“I particularly want you to go to my sister’s,” he said. “A reason has just occurred to me—a very strong reason, why you should accept the invitation, especially as I shall not be there.”
“Oh, no,” said she, “I could not go without you.”
“My dear Beatrice, where is that wifely obedience of which you mean to be so graceful an exponent?” said he, standing behind her with a hand on each of her shoulders. “The fact is, dearest, that far more than you can imagine depends on your taking this step. It is necessary to throw people—my relations in particular—off the notion that something came of our meeting at Castle Innisfail. Now, if you were to go to Abbeylands while it was known that I had excused myself, you can understand what the effect would be.”
“The effect, so far as I’m concerned, would be that I should be miserable, all the time I was away from you.”
“The effect would be, that those people who may have been joining our names together, would feel that they have been a little too precipitate in their conclusions.”
“That seems a very small result for so much self-sacrifice on our part, Harold.”
“It’s not so small as it may seem to you. I see now how important it would be to me—to both of us—if you were to go for a week to Abbeylands while I remain in town.”
“Then of course I’ll go. Yes, dear; I told you that I would trust you for ever. I placed all my trust in you yesterday. How many people would condemn me for marrying you in such indecent haste—that is what they would call it—and without a word of consultation with my father either? When I showed my trust in you at that time—the most important in my life—you may, I think, have confidence that I will trust you in everything. Yes, I’ll go.”
He had turned away from her. How could he face her when she was talking in this way about her trust in him?
“There has never been trust like yours, my beloved,” said he, after a pause. “You will never regret it for a moment, my love—never, never!”