He turned, and with me, took the path back to the tavern. I heard, as we went on, an altercation behind me, and involuntarily, after we had gone some distance, I looked back. Lady Arabella was struggling in the grasp of Sir Thomas Vernon, while Mrs. Whitall looked on, and wrung her hands. Sir Thomas, however, was no match for Arabella’s young strength. She broke away from him, and, running after us, caught up, panting and breathless, with us, as we entered the little grove. And then I saw an almost exact representation of the scene when Giles Vernon had insanely and with unmanly groveling and violence pleaded with Arabella for her love,—so she pleaded with Philip Overton. She held him by the arms, when he would have thrown her off.
“Philip! Philip!” she cried. “I did it for you! I determined to make you rich, great, even if you refused my fortune. Sir Thomas can not live long. Surely, you can not reproach me, if all the world does. The stupid, stupid world thinks I did it under the influence of Sir Thomas Vernon; but no, it was not hate for Giles Vernon, it was my love for you, Philip Overton, that made me appear at the York Assizes.”
“Remember yourself,” said Overton to her sternly. “Others, besides myself, see your degradation!”
“It is no degradation to love truly, to love as I do. Speak but one word to me, and I will become a Methodist like yourself. I, too, will go among the poor, and serve and love them; and I will even love God for your sake!”
The awful grotesqueness of this, the blasphemy of it, was altogether unknown to her. She continued wildly,—
“Does not my soul need saving as much as those clods you have been praying with?”
“You blaspheme!” replied Overton, casting her off.
And, to make the resemblance between her own unwomanly conduct and the unmanly conduct of Giles Vernon the more singular, she recovered herself, as he had done, in a single moment of time. She laid her hand on Overton’s arm, and looked keenly into his eyes. Her glance seemed to enchain him, and to set her free. She breathed a long sigh, and, turning, gazed about her, like a person awaking from a nightmare. Then, with perfect self-possession, she dropped a curtsey to us both, and said, in her natural, playful manner,—
“Mr. Overton, I see I have been mistaken. I should have tried to cheat the law by not appearing when I was summoned; or, I should have testified falsely. And for my indiscreet conduct just now, let me tell you, for seven years I have been under a spell. It is now broken for ever. Titania once loved Bottom the weaver; but not always. I bid you good day, Captain Philip Overton, and you, Mr. Richard Glyn. And I trust Giles Vernon’s life may be saved, if only to keep you, Captain Overton, as poor as you deserve to be. For myself, I shall shortly marry,—perhaps, Sir Thomas Vernon,—then, neither of you will get the estates. Good morning!”
And she was gone, flying along the field, with a white mantle streaming after her, and her flight as rapid as the swallows in spring.