"Upon my word, I am very much obliged to him!" broke, in the other, with but little more vehemence, after all, than the occasion demanded. "The man has lied to you like a villain! and his lie is all the more cowardly that it has a certain leaven of truth. Engaged to him I never was; love him I never did; I might have liked him, perhaps, if I hadn't found him out in time, but there is no fear that I shall ever like him now!"
"All this fiction, then," continued Miss Ross, "served as a preamble for a proposal in form to the young lady who had entered his house as companion to his daughters, and whom he was bound, by every manly sentiment, to shelter and protect. I told him so, and he answered that he could in no way fulfil this duty so completely as by making me his wife. Then I laughed at him—I couldn't help it—and he looked so hurt and sad, for he's not a bad actor, that I almost pitied him for the moment, as you do pity people on the stage, though you know it's acting all the time. At last I got sleepy, and wanted to go to bed, so I determined to put him to a real test, knowing perfectly well what would be the result.
"I pretended to soften. I gave him my hand, no more, though he was an old player, and obviously accustomed to consider such concessions the preliminaries of a winning game. Then I told him he ought to know my history; that I had entered his house under false pretences; that long ago, and far away (this is true, Mrs. Lascelles, but let it never again be alluded to by you or me), I had loved and been deceived, and could never care for any one in that way again. Lastly, I reminded him of his children, his age (I couldn't resist that!) and his position, watching him very narrowly while I shammed a good cry, and sobbed out 'Sir Henry, I am not fit to be your wife.'
"Then I unmasked my man, just as I expected all along. His face brightened, he never dropped my hand, he looked pleased and altogether relieved, while he embarked on a long and fluent dissertation, in which he insisted on the advantages of a protector and a home, on his own merits, on my friendless position, and on the reparation I owed him for his resolution at once to break off with you. Not a word now about matrimony. Oh! I was never deceived in him from the beginning—not for a moment!
"I told him so. 'Do you think,' I said, 'after all I have gone through, after all I have confessed to you, that I have a spark of sentiment, an atom of romance left—that I would trust myself to the tender mercies of any man living, except as his wife?'
"He turned pale, walked to the fire, poked it furiously, and came back with his hands in his pockets glaring at me like a tiger. 'Then be my wife, Miss Ross!' he growled. 'You won't like it, but I'll do my best to make you happier than the others!' He was horridly put out, I saw, so I made him a curtsy, took my candlestick, and marched off to bed. I locked my door, you may be sure, and as he was off early next morning to pay a visit in the neighbourhood, he came and knocked several times to wish me 'Good-bye,' but I pretended to be asleep, and before he returned yesterday I was gone.
"Mrs. Lascelles, you are the only person who was ever good to me without a selfish motive. I have tried to repay you by putting you on your guard. I can begin my fight with the world where I left off—I rather like it. But think of me kindly sometimes, and try not to forget our drive in the dark to Midcombe Station. I must go now. I don't suppose we shall ever meet again!"
But she didn't go, notwithstanding, for Mrs. Lascelles had many more questions to ask, many more confidences to receive, all tending to the condemnation of her false adorer, Sir Henry Hallaton. Tea-time found the ladies still in earnest conclave, and their intimacy must have been closely cemented, for Miss Ross had already confided to her hostess that her Christian name was Virginie, and that she was familiarly called "Jin."