She moved towards the door, but came back, and held out her hand to the lawyer.
“Forgive me for being so absent and strange with you,” she said, with a faint smile. “You have been very good and kind to me, but I dare say you think all this odd and unnatural.”
“Oh, no; not at all,” said Trevithick, colouring like a girl.
“It was the only thing in which I asked to have my way—to let the wedding be perfectly quiet. Don’t be long, Mary.”
Trevithick looked at his little betrothed as the door closed, and she looked up at him.
“I say, Mary, dear,” he said, “is she quite—you know what I mean. I feel almost as if I ought to interfere.”
“Oh, John, John,” cried the little thing, bursting into a passionate fit of weeping; “if we could only stop it even now!”
She sobbed on his breast for a few seconds, and then hastily wiped her eyes.
“There, I’m better now,” she said. “I’ve talked to her till I’m tired, but it’s of no use. ‘It’s my duty’ is all she will say. Oh! why did people ever invent the horrid word. Don’t say anything, John, dear. Let’s get it over, and hope for the best; but if there’s any chance of our wedding being like this, let’s shake hands like Christians, forgive one another, and say good-bye.”
She ran out of the room, and Trevithick sat watching the rain trickle down the window-panes, and tried to follow the course of a big ship struggling up Channel, its storm topsails dimly seen through the mist of rain.