‘What other tyranny?’
‘You mustn’t expect all my love. Before long some one else will rule over me.—What an exchange I have made! And I was going to be so independent.’
To the listener, her speech seemed to come from a maturer mind than she had hitherto revealed. But he suffered from the thought that this might be merely a pathological phase. In reminding him of her motherhood, she checked the flow of his emotion.
‘You’ll remember,’ Nancy went on, ‘that I’m not enjoying myself whilst you are away. I don’t want you to be unhappy—only to think of me, and keep in mind what I’m going through. If you do that, you won’t be away from me longer than you can help.’
It was said with unforced pathos, and Tarrant’s better part made generous reply.
‘If you find it too hard, dear, write to me, and tell me, and there shall be an end of it.’
‘Never. You think me wretchedly weak, but you shall see—’
‘It’s of your own free will you undertake it?’
‘Yes, of my own free will,’ she answered firmly. ‘I won’t come to you penniless. It isn’t right I should do so. My father didn’t mean that. If I had had the sense and the courage to tell him, all this misery would have been spared. That money is mine by every right, and I won’t lose it. Not only for your sake and my own—there is some one else to think of.’
Tarrant gave her a kind look.