“I know of no signal,” I replied; “I am not accustomed to clandestine appointments.”
“And yet you can carry on a clandestine engagement excellently well! You told Sir Richard that you did not love me—that you should be glad if I married another.”
An indignant reply was bursting from my lips, but he saw the rising storm and hastened to allay it. He changed his tone at once from reproach to tender protestations.
“It broke my heart to leave you as I did,” he said, “but I could do no less. Sir Richard insisted on my accompanying him—I was obliged to comply. Even now he believes me to be in town. I have travelled all night. He half-suspected me, because I refused to dine with him to-day; and I was forced to promise to join him at a ball to-night. I need not be there till twelve or one, and so can stay two hours with you.”
“But why this hurried journey?” I asked. “Why do you come?”
He answered by pleading the vehemence of his affection, and spoke of the risk he ran of losing me for ever. “Do you not know,” he said, “that my father has set his heart upon your marrying my brother?”
“He is very good,” I replied disdainfully. “But I am not a slave, to be bought and sold. My cousin Clinton is the last person in the world whom you need fear.”
“Oh, Ellen, how much do you comfort—transport me, by this generous contempt for wealth and rank! You ask why I am here—it were worth the fatigue, twice ten thousand times told, to have these assurances. I have trembled—I have feared—but you will not love this favoured of fortune—this elder son!”
I cannot describe Vernon’s look as he said this. Methought envy, malice, and demoniac exultation were all mingled. He laughed aloud—I shrunk from him dismayed. He became calmer a moment after.
“My life is in your hands, Ellen,” he said;—but why repeat his glossing speeches, in which deceit and truth were so kneaded into one mass, that the poison took the guise of the wholesome substance, while the whole was impregnated with destruction. I felt that I liked him less than ever; yet I yielded to his violence. I believed myself the victim of a venial but irreparable mistake of my own. I confirmed my promises, and pledged my faith most solemnly. It is true that I undeceived him as much as I could with regard to the extent of my attachment; at first he was furious at my coldness, then overwhelmed me with entreaties for forgiveness—tears even streamed from his eyes—and then again he haughtily reminded me that I forfeited every virtue of my sex, and became a monument of falsehood, if I failed him. We separated at last—I promised to write every day, and saw him ride away with a sensation as if relieved from the infliction of the torture.