Pressing Ellinor close to his heart, with her face nestled in his neck, he told her why he had asked for this meeting, and what he had now to propose for their own happiness, and that to deceive his wealthy uncle, from whom their marriage must be kept a secret—there could be no public ceremony—no notice in the newspapers, more than all!
'Dare you trust yourself to me, darling Ellinor, and marry me privately; and then—then, before spring comes, assuredly—'
'My heart recoils from such treachery to Mary—from all this secrecy; is it—can it be necessary?' asked the girl, weeping.
'Most necessary for our future, if it is to be a brilliant one, as I have no doubt you wish,' he continued, caressing her, and then added, with a sophistry that would have been plain to anyone less simple or less easily deluded than Ellinor, 'I am quite prepared to acknowledge our marriage to all the world, provided it does not, as it must not, reach my uncle's ears.'
'I have heard that trusting to Providence in the shape of elderly relations is often fatal,' said Ellinor, with a sickly smile.
'I shall get a special licence, if that will satisfy you, Ellinor darling!' he urged, ignorant of the fact that in Scotland such a document was unknown, and that there the Archbishop of Canterbury had no more power than 'General Booth.'
He left nothing unsaid to play upon her weakness, but it was long before he could obtain a half silent consent from her, and, ere he did so, more than once an ugly gleam came into his eyes.
Though not unhandsome, the face of Sir Redmond was not always a pleasant one to look upon. A certain force about it there was, and those who watched it felt that its owner was not a man to be trifled with in anything that touched his self-interest or his evil purposes; that he was a man ready for emergencies and heedless of obstacles if he had an end in view.
Like a character recently described by a novelist, 'his great weapon was his inflexible will, aided by the reputation he had achieved of never allowing himself to be defeated. I need not say that he held women in the most supreme contempt, and openly expressed his opinion that every woman had her price. The only merit he assumed was in knowing the exact article of barter each had set her heart on.'
Such was the pleasant personage who had supplanted Robert Wodrow, and even while he was softly caressing the girl and subjecting her to his endearments, he was thinking of the time to come—the time when she would find herself separated from her loving sister, her only tie on earth—alone in the world, penniless and in his power, her character and position utterly lost, and when none would believe her most solemn protestations of innocence; then would be his hour of supreme triumph, when, like a bruised and wounded bird, she would come fluttering to him for succour and protection, and when he might be generous, and make her over to 'that yahoo, Robert Wodrow.'