"I insist," said Honora. "Come away, Louis, please, come away."
He flung away her wrist with contempt, and pointed out her path. In a short time she had disappeared.
"And what had she to tell you, may I ask?" said the Deacon. "Like the banshee her appearance brings misfortune to us."
"You have always been my confidant, Louis," she answered after some thought. "Do you know anything about the earlier years of Arthur Dillon?"
"Much. Was that her theme?"
"That he was married and his wife still lives."
"He will tell you about that business himself no doubt. I know nothing clear or certain ... some hasty expressions of feeling ... part of a dream ... the declaration that all was well now ... and so on. But I shall tell him. Don't object, I must. The woman is persistent and diabolical in her attempts to injure us. He must know at least that she is in the vicinity. He will guess what she's after without any further hint. But you mustn't credit her, Honora. As you know...."
"Oh, I know," she answered with a smile. "The wretched creature is not to be believed under any circumstances. Poor soul!"
Nevertheless she felt the truth of Edith's story. It mattered little whether Arthur was Anne Dillon's son, he would always be the faithful, strong friend, and benefactor. That he had a wife living, the living witness of the weakness of his career in the mines, shocked her for the moment. The fact carried comfort too. Doubt fled, and the weighing of inclinations, the process kept up by her mind apart from her will, ceased of a sudden. The great pity for Arthur, which had welled up in her heart like a new spring, dried up at its source. For the first time she felt the sin in him, the absence of the ideal. He had tripped and fallen like all his kind in the wild days of youth; and according to his nature had been repeating with her the drama enacted with his first love. She respected his first love. She respected the method of nature, but did not feel forced to admire it.
Her distaste for the intimacy of marriage returned with tenfold strength. One might have become submissive and companionable with a virgin nature; to marry another woman's lover seemed ridiculous. This storm cleared the air beautifully. Her own point of view became plainer, and she saw how far inclination had hurried her. For some hours she had been near to falling in love with Arthur, had been willing to yield to tender persuasion. The woman guilty of such weakness did not seem at this moment to have been Honora Ledwith; only a poor soul, like a little ship in a big wind, borne away by the tempest of emotion.