“And how would you suggest it should be done?” he inquired composedly.
Her eyes came back to his face. There was an eager light in them, and when she spoke the words hurried from her lips in imperative demand.
“Oh, it would be so easy, Maurice! You have only to convince Sara that you are not fit to marry her—or any woman, for that matter! Tell her what your reputation is—tell her why you can never show yourself amongst your fellow men, why you live here under an assumed name. She won't want to marry you when she knows these things, and Tim would have his chance to win her back again.”
“You mean—let me quite understand you, Elisabeth”—Trent spoke with curious precision—“that I am to blacken myself in Sara's eyes, so that, discovering what a wolf in sheep's clothing I am, she will break off our engagement. That, I take it, is your suggestion?”
Beneath his searching glance she faltered a moment. Then—
“Yes,” she answered boldly. “That is it.”
“It's a charming programme,” he commented. “But it doesn't seem to me that you have considered Sara at all in the matter. It will hardly add to her happiness to find that she has given her heart to—what shall we say?”—smiling disagreeably—“to the wrong kind of man?”
“Of, of course, she will be upset, disillusionnee, for a time. She will suffer. But then we all have our share of suffering. Sara cannot hope to be exempt. And afterwards—afterwards”—her eyes shining—“she will be happy. She and Tim will be happy together.”
“And so you are prepared to cause all this suffering, Sara's and mine—though I suppose”—with a bitter inflection—“that last hardly counts with you!—in order to secure Tim's happiness?”
“Yes,” significantly, “I am prepared—to do anything to secure that.”