“Most certainly I do.”
“Thank God for that! You have lifted a nightmare from my mind. Do you know that the promise I wished to exact from you was that you would at least spare me the suffering which a denunciation of my brother Cyril would cause me?”
“A denunciation! Ah, well—I don’t like him. I never shall like him. But as there is nothing to denounce, I can safely promise you, nay, swear to you, that never, so long as you live, will I, by word or deed, do aught that can injure any member of your family or in any way jeopardize its good name.”
“You swear this?”
“I swear it!”
“You have given me a new lease of life, my darling, and by the time we join you at the Grange you will see me almost as vigorous as ever.”
“I hope so. But I must be off now, or I shall not be ready when the cab comes round for me. Good-by.”
“Good-by, my dear. I hope the change will do you good. You too have been drooping lately.”
“I suppose I have. But country air will work wonders, eh?”
Another minute, and I had hurried out of Lady Elizabeth’s room, with breaking heart and whirling brain. Should I ever see her again? To what had I pledged myself? I had, for her sake, forsworn all my dreams of punishing those whom I firmly believed to be the murderers of the Earl of Greatlands. Certainly, I had never intended to invoke the vengeance of the law upon them, for I also had some regard to the maintenance of the esteem in which the two families were held by the world at large. But I had meant to elucidate, by some means, the extent of their culpability, and to show them up to their relatives in all their hideous criminality, leaving them to continue their career stripped of the misplaced love and confidence that had hitherto been so charily bestowed upon me.