So he waited, growing very red in the face, as Mr. Thornton answered, indignantly:
“You will not, you say? I think I can tell you that which may change your mind;” and he explained to her briefly how, unless Lilian Veille were Lawrence’s wife, and that very soon, they would all be beggars. “Nothing but dire necessity could have wrung this confession from me,” he said, “and now, Miss Howell, think again. Show yourself the brave, generous girl I am sure you are. Tell my son you cannot be his wife; but do not tell him why, else he might not give you up. Do not let him know that I have seen you. Do it for Lilian’s sake, if for no other. You love her, and you surely would not wish to cause her death.”
“No, no—oh, no!” moaned Mildred, whose only weakness was loving Lilian Veille too well.
Mr. Thornton saw the wavering, and, taking from his pocket the letter Geraldine had prepared with so much care, he bade her read it, and then say if she could answer “Yes” to Lawrence Thornton.
Geraldine Veille knew what she was doing when she wrote a letter which appealed powerfully to every womanly tender feeling of Mildred’s impulsive nature. Lilian was represented as being dangerously ill, and in her delirium begging of Mildred not to take Lawrence from her.
“It would touch a heart of stone,” wrote Geraldine, “to hear her plaintive pleadings, ‘Oh Milly, dear Milly, don’t take him from me—don’t—for I loved him first, and he loved me! Wait till I am dead, Milly. It won’t be long. I can’t live many years, and when I’m gone, he’ll go back to you.’”
Then followed several strong arguments from Geraldine why Mildred should give him up and so save Lilian from dying, and Mildred, as she read, felt the defiant hardness which Mr. Thornton’s first words had awakened slowly giving way. Covering her face with her hands, she sobbed:
“What must I do? What shall I do?”
“Write to Lawrence and tell him no,” answered Mr. Thornton; while Mildred moaned:
“But I love him so much, oh, so much.”