“Not yet. I have only lately learnt the news myself.”
“Then if it is as you say, when he knows he will go back to you.”
“There are difficulties in the way.”
“What difficulties?”
“My dear, this. To try and forget me, he has been making love to you. Men do these things. I merely ask you to convince yourself of the truth. Go away for six months—disappear entirely. Leave him free—uninfluenced. If he loves you—if it be not merely a sense of honour that binds him—you will find him here on your return. If not—if in the interval I have succeeded in running off with him, well, is not the two or three thousand pounds I am prepared to put into this paper of yours a fair price for such a lover?”
Tommy rose with a laugh of genuine amusement. She could never altogether put aside her sense of humour, let Fate come with what terrifying face it would.
“You may have him for nothing—if he is that man,” the girl told her; “he shall be free to choose between us.”
“You mean you will release him from his engagement?”
“That is what I mean.”
“Why not take my offer? You know the money is needed. It will save your father years of anxiety and struggle. Go away—travel, for a couple of months, if you’re afraid of the six. Write him that you must be alone, to think things over.”