‘Horace, you can’t be so wicked as that!’
‘It’s better,’ he pursued recklessly, ‘to break it off now, than to marry her and make her miserable. I don’t love her, and I have never really thought I did. I was going to marry her only for her money. Why she wants to marry me, I don’t know. There’s something wrong; she doesn’t really care for me.’
‘She does! I assure you she does!’
‘Then I can’t help it.’
Mrs. Damerel went close to him, and touched his arm.
‘My dear,’—her voice was so low that it seemed terror-stricken,—‘you don’t mean to marry—any one else?’
He drew apart, she followed him.
‘Oh, that would be terrible! What can I say to open your eyes and show you what you are doing? Horace, have you no sense of honour? Can you find it in your heart to cast off a girl who loves you, and thinks that in so short a time she will be your wife?’
‘This again is your fault,’ he replied, with a violence which proved the conflict of emotions in him. ‘But for you, I should never have proposed to Winifred—never dreamt of such a thing. What do I want with her money? I have enough of my own, and I shall make more in business. Why have you driven me into this? Did you expect to get some profit out of it?’
The blow struck home, and Mrs. Damerel flinched.