A great weight seemed lifted from his shoulder the day he heard that his rival's holiday had come to an end, and that he had been forced to return to his counting-house in London. True it is that Mr. Brookes had in a certain measure approved of Willy's action in forbidding young Stracey the Manor House, and therefore of his, Frank Escott's, suit, but neither of these gains compensated him for the crowning loss of not being able to see his beloved, for although the Manor House was still theoretically open to him, practically it was closed. The sisters, although at variance on all subjects, had united in condemning him and Willy, and during one dinner, the misery of which he declared he could never forget, they had sat whispering together, refusing to address him either by look or word. Willy took all this calmly. It is an ill wind that blows no good, and the silence enabled him to thoroughly masticate his food. Mr. Brookes wept a little and laughed a little, and reminded them of the oblivion that awaited all their little quarrels.
All this, like much else in life, was ridiculous enough; but because we are ridiculous, it does not follow that we do not suffer, and Frank suffered. He was five-and-twenty, and light love had him fairly by the throat; he winced, and he cried out, but very soon his dignity gave way, and he craved forgiveness. But Maggie passed without heeding him. For more than a week she resisted all his appeals, and it was not until she saw that she was taking the neighbourhood into her confidence, and to feel that if she did not relent a little he might leave Southwick, and not return, she answered him with a monosyllable. With what bliss did he hear that first “no,” and how passionately he pleaded for a few words; it did not seem to matter what they were, so long as he heard her speak one whole sentence to him. Feeling her power, she was shy of yielding, and with every concession she drew him further into the meshes of love. He dined now nearly every day at the Manor House, and he spent an hour, sometimes two, with her in the morning or afternoon; he followed her from greenhouse to greenhouse, but all his efforts were in vain, and he failed not only to obtain her promise to marry him, but even a renewal of the feeble and partial hopes which she had given him that night on the beach. He prayed, he wept, he implored pity, he openly spoke of suicide, and he hinted at murder. But Maggie passed him, pushing him out of the way with the watering-pot, threatening to water him too, until one day he drew a revolver. She screamed, and the revolver was put away, but on the next occasion a stiletto that he had brought from Italy was produced, and with a great deal of earnestness life was declared to be a miserable thing. It was absurd, no doubt, but at the same time it was not a little pathetic; he was so good-looking, and so sincere. Maggie put down the watering-pot, and she would probably have allowed him to take her hand and kiss her, if he had not spoken roughly about Charlie, and called her conduct into question. So she told him she would not speak to him again, and she continued watering the flowers in silence. Amid vague remembrances of murders she had read of, Frank's words and behaviour remained present in her mind, and that evening when Willy, who rarely took the trouble to speak, much less to advise his sisters, told her that she might never get such a chance again, she said: “I am not going to marry a madman to please your vanity.”
“Marry a madman! What do you mean?”
“Well, I call a man that who comes regularly to see a girl with a revolver in one pocket and a stiletto in the other, and threatens to leave himself wallowing in a pool of blood at her feet—”
“You mean to say he does that? You are clearly determined to drive the poor fellow out of his mind with your infernal coquetry. Well, women are the most troublesome, and I believe in many cases, the wickedest creatures on the face of God's earth.”
“You shut up. Men who don't get on with women always abuse them; you are soured since Miss ——, the actress, jilted you.”
“If you ever dare mention that subject, I will never speak to you again. You know I don't break my word.”
“Why do you interfere in my affairs? You don't think of me when you go down to browbeat Charlie Stracey; you don't think of what would have been said of me had Frank hit him, and it had all come out in the papers.” Maggie said no more; she saw she had gone too far. Willy sat puffing at his pipe; but when her father spoke of a certain investment that had not turned out as well as he had anticipated, he joined in the conversation, and she hoped her cruelty was forgotten.