The reproof in her voice brought him up short. "I beg your pardon. I am a brute, I know. I am jealous of him, bitterly jealous! I believe I always have been. My father loved him better than he loved me. My father loved that woman—I daren't trust myself to talk of her—better than ever he loved my poor good mother. I have always been jealous of Felix. In the light of what I am suffering now, I know that much, But—but"—his eyes gleamed, and he set his teeth—he looked a different man—"but he has not got her love. She likes me best—and I am going to have her, too. She asked me to save her from him."
Miss Rawson viewed him steadily. She was desperately sorry for him.
"I am in favor of keeping one's word," went on Denzil in an exculpatory tone. "I would never urge anybody, man or woman, to back out of a promise given. But a promise of this kind stands on a different footing. A girl of Rona's age at that time cannot give a promise that shall be binding when she is grown up. Look how human beings change! And nobody could urge her to keep the letter of a promise which in spirit she not only has already broken, but which she has never, in fact, kept."
"That is true," said Miss Rawson slowly. And after some consideration she asked him, "What are you going to do?"
"I am going to write to him to come home at once, at my expense, and we will have this thing decided," said Denzil, in a voice which told that his mind was made up. "She must not, of course, give me any promise until he has released her: though from this letter I judge that he understands pretty well the state of her feeling for him. But let him come—let it be fair and square between him and me. He must have his chance."
Miss Rawson was still very thoughtful. After another pause she went on: "There is another aspect of the case, you know, Denzil, which, in your absorption over this curious complication, you have put on one side. Did Rona tell you nothing of her birth or parentage?"
He started, as if the idea occurred to him for the first time. "Nothing," he said; "as you say, the subject was not touched upon."
"Yet it will be impossible or most unwise for a marriage to take place, dear Denzil, without further details," said Aunt Bee. She spoke hesitatingly, loath to wound, but with a gravity which fixed his attention. "If this man is still alive—this Rankin Leigh—I suppose he would be fairly certain to hear of his niece's marriage. You cannot marry her under any but her true name. Veronica Leigh is not a common name; and the wedding of Denzil Vanston of Normansgrave must be publicly announced. You would not like ugly facts to crop up about your wife."
Denzil crimsoned. "Why, what facts?" he asked. "What could turn up?"
She replied cautiously: "If, as you tell me, this man was intending to hand her over to the kind of life that is implied by such a training, he must be a person on a very different social level from ourselves. Remember, Felix rescued her from a lodging-house in Deptford. I am not a snob, my boy, and I know that lilies-of-the-valley are now and then found on dust-heaps. I acknowledge with all my heart that Rona is a lily of a girl. But it will not be pleasant for you to have undesirable people coming about you, perhaps blackmailing you to have facts about your wife's origin kept dark. However dearly we love Rona, the fact remains that we do not know who she is. Remember, Denzil, it is a question of the mother of your children—of future Vanstons, dear boy."