Samuel’s face turned livid as he heard.
“The villain!” he muttered. “Oh! I should like to kill him. The villain—the villain!”
“Don’t talk in that kind of way, Mr. Rock, or, if you wish to do so, leave me. Why should you call him a villain, seeing that he loves me as I love him, and is ready to marry me to-morrow? Are you prepared to do as much now? Stop before you answer: you have not heard all the terms upon which, even if you should still wish it, I might possibly consent to become your wife, or my reason for even considering the matter, First as to the reason; it would be that I might protect Sir Henry Graves from the results of his own good feeling, for it cannot be to his advantage to burden his life with me, and unless I take some such step, or die, I shall probably marry him. Now as to the condition upon which I might consent to marry anybody else, you, for instance, Mr. Rock: it is that I should be left alone to live here or wherever I might select for a year from the present date, unless of my own free will I chose to shorten the time. Do you think that you, or any other man, Mr. Rock, could consent to take a woman upon such terms?”
“What would happen at the end of the year?” he asked.
“At the end of the year,” she answered deliberately, “if I still lived, I should be prepared to become the faithful wife of that man, provided, of course, that he did not attempt to violate the agreement in any particular. If he chose to do so, I should consider the bargain at an end, and he would never see me again.”
“You want to drive a hard trade, Joan.”
“Yes, Mr. Rock a very hard trade. But then, you see, the circumstances are peculiar.”
“It’s too much: I can’t see my way to it, Joan!” he exclaimed passionately.
“I am very glad to hear that, Mr. Rock,” she answered, with evident relief; “and I think that you are quite right. Good-bye.”
Samuel picked up his hat, and rose as though to go.