“I don’t care what it is! It would be much worse form for us to let the poor thing take to her bed and die.”
“But surely she is not so bad as that,” whispered Guest, who felt moved by the sob he heard in his companion’s throat.
“Worse, worse,” whispered Edie. “You don’t see what I do. You don’t know what I do. Breaking hearts are all poets’ nonsense, Percy, but poor Myra is slowly wasting away from misery and unhappiness. Uncle doesn’t see it, but I know, and if something isn’t done soon I shall have no one left to love.”
“Edie!”
“I mean like a sister. O Percy, I’d rather see her forgive him and marry him, however wicked he has been, than live like this.”
A few chords in a minor key floated through the drawing room, and Edie shivered.
“Tell me,” she said after a few minutes, “do you think he acted as he did because he didn’t love her—because he felt that he couldn’t take a woman who had been engaged to someone else?”
“I’m sure he loves her with all his heart, and I feel as certain that he would not let such a thing stand in his way.”
“Then I’m reckless,” said Edie excitedly. “I don’t care a bit what the world may say. Myra shall go to him and see him.”
“She would not.”