Roderick placed his hand on his heart and held it there a moment. “Dead—dead—dead!” he said at last.
“I wonder,” Rowland asked presently, “if you begin to comprehend the beauty of Miss Garland’s character. She is a person of the highest merit.”
“Evidently—or I would not have cared for her!”
“Has that no charm for you now?”
“Oh, don’t force a fellow to say rude things!”
“Well, I can only say that you don’t know what you are giving up.”
Roderick gave a quickened glance. “Do you know, so well?”
“I admire her immeasurably.”
Roderick smiled, we may almost say sympathetically. “You have not wasted time.”
Rowland’s thoughts were crowding upon him fast. If Roderick was resolute, why oppose him? If Mary was to be sacrificed, why, in that way, try to save her? There was another way; it only needed a little presumption to make it possible. Rowland tried, mentally, to summon presumption to his aid; but whether it came or not, it found conscience there before it. Conscience had only three words, but they were cogent. “For her sake—for her sake,” it dumbly murmured, and Rowland resumed his argument. “I don’t know what I would n’t do,” he said, “rather than that Miss Garland should suffer.”