I caught up with Hugh as he was going—very slowly going, poor boy—round the last turning to his sister's room.
"Hughie," I gasped, breathless with my haste. "You are right—but don't be brutal. Don't kill the child. Listen. Instead of writing to Jack Marston, let him come. Let him tell her himself. Give her a chance. Give him one, even. It is a cruel business, anyhow. Don't let's blunder into making it worse than it is."
I suppose as he had gone to the accomplishment of his heavy task he had become more appreciative of its difficulty. He was very fond of his sister, and must have shrunk with dread from the contemplation of her pain. Anyhow, his purpose had weakened. With a few words more I got him to acquiesce in the amended plan.
"How can we be certain he tells her? He will lie to her," he objected.
"We will take measures to be sure he does not."
"He is a specious beggar; she will marry him all the same."
"Then, if he has such an ascendency over her, would she not in any case? She is of age; her own mistress."
"But not from my house," the boy said.
However, in what I proposed there was respite; and, for better or worse, I had my way.
I could not return to witness the innocent happiness of Daphne, and I spent the rest of the afternoon in trying to soothe the agitation of Daphne's mother; listening to her tirades against her suddenly masterful son, hearing her protestations of faith in the rectitude of Jack Marston, alternating with her outbursts of anger and grief at his hitherto unsuspected villainy.