“My dearest heart, will you listen to me?” said Mr Ravenscar. “Arabella is upstairs, and very likely asleep, and if you don’t believe me I will take you up to see her with your own eyes!”
She stared at him in a dazed way. “Are you sure?” she uttered.
“Yes, I am perfectly sure,” he replied. “She told me all about it last night.”
“She—she told you?” said Miss Grantham, apparently dazed.
“You see,” explained Mr Ravenscar, “she has always been in the habit of telling me things, and she sometimes even takes my advice. I advised her to beware of the man who tried to persuade her to elope with him, because such a man could only be a fortune-hunter. You will perhaps have noticed that my sister is a minx. I regret to say that it seemed good to her to dupe Kennet into believing that she meant to fly with him tonight. I understand that after waiting in the rain for an hour at the appointed rendezvous, he was joined by a link-boy who had been bribed to deliver a note into his hands which can have done nothing, I imagine, to heighten his self-esteem.”
“Oh, thank God!” whispered Miss Grantham, and burst into overwrought tears.
Mr Ravenscar promptly took her in his arms, and held her tightly that she was quite unable to break free. After making a half-hearted attempt to do so, and uttering a confused protest, to which he paid no heed at all, she subsided in a very weak way, and cried into his shoulder. Mr Ravenscar endured this with great forbearance for several minutes, but when Miss Grantham made various muffled and wholly unintelligible marks into his coat, he commanded her to look up. Miss Grantham then gulped in an unromantic manner, sniffed, and looked for her handkerchief. Evidently feeling that she was incapable of drying her own cheeks, Mr Ravenscar performed the office for her. After that, he kissed her, and, when she tried speak, kissed her again, extremely roughly.
“Oh, no!” said Miss Grantham faintly.
“Be quiet!” said Mr Ravenscar, kissing her for the third time.
Quite cowed, Miss Grantham submitted, making no attempt say anything more for an appreciable time. When she did speak again, she had discarded her bonnet, and was sitting with her head on Mr Ravenscar’s shoulder, and her hand tucked in his. Notwithstanding these circumstances, she said: “You can’t possibly marry me! You know you cannot!”