"But this is simply intolerable!" Honoria said in a low voice.
She held herself tall and straight, looking gallant yet pure, austere even, as some pictured Jeanne d'Arc, a great singleness of purpose, a high courage of protest, an effect at once of fearless challenge and of command in her bearing.—"Is it not a scandal," she went on, "that in a civilised country, at this time of day, woman should be allowed, actually forced, to suffer so much? You must not permit this martyrdom to be completed—you can't!"
As she spoke Decies watched her keenly. Who this stately, young lady—so remarkably unlike the majority of Lord Shotover's intimate, feminine acquaintance—might be, he did not know. But he discerned in her an ally and a powerful one.
"Yes," he said impulsively, "you are right. It is a martyrdom and a scandalous one. It's worse than murder, it's sacrilege. It's not like any ordinary marriage. I don't want to be brutal, but it isn't. There's something repulsive in it, something unnatural."
The young man looked at Honoria, and read in her expression a certain agreement and encouragement.
"You know it, Shotover—you know it just as well as I do. And that justified me in attempting what I suppose I would not otherwise have felt it honourable to attempt.—Look here, Shotover, I will tell you what has just happened. I would have had to tell you to-morrow, in any case, if we had carried the plan out. But I suppose I have no alternative but to tell you now, since you've come."
He ranged himself in line with Miss St. Quentin, his back against one of the big stone vases. He struggled honestly to keep both temper and emotion under control, but a rather volcanic energy was perceptible in him.
"I love Lady Constance," he said. "I have told her so, and—and she cares for me. I am not a Crœsus like Calmady. But I am not a pauper. I have enough to keep a wife in a manner suitable to her position, and my own. When my Uncle Ulick Decies dies—which I hope he'll not hurry to do, since I am very fond of him—there'll be the Somersetshire property in addition to my own dear, old place in County Cork. And your sister simply hates this marriage——"
"Lord bless me, my dear fellow, so do I!" Lord Shotover put in with evident sincerity.
"And so, when at last I had spoken freely, I asked her to——"