Hester furiously dashed away the tears she had not been able to stop.
Meynell's look changed. His voice grew strangely pitiful and soft.
"Dear Hester—if you knew—you couldn't be unkind to Aunt Alice."
"Why shouldn't I know? Why am I treated like a baby?"
"There are some things too bitter to tell,"—he said gravely—"some griefs we have no right to meddle with. But we can heal them—or make them worse. You"—his kind eyes scourged her again—"have been making everything worse for Aunt Alsie for a long time past."
Hester shrugged her shoulders passionately, as though to repel the charge, but she said nothing. They moved on in silence for a little. In Meynell's mind there reigned a medley of feelings—tragic recollections, moral questionings, which time had never silenced, perplexity as to the present and the future, and with it all, the liveliest and sorest pity for the young, childish, violent creature beside him. It was not for those who, with whatever motives, had contributed to bring her to that state and temper, to strike any note of harshness.
Presently, as they neared the end of the woody path, he looked up again. He saw her sitting sullenly on the gently moving horse, a vision of beauty at bay. The sight determined him toward frankness.
"Hester!—I have told you that if you go on flirting with Philip Meryon you run the risk of disgrace and misery, because he has no conscience and no scruples, and you are ignorant and inexperienced, and have no idea of the fire you are playing with. But I think I had better go farther. I am going to say what you force me to say to you—young as you are. My strong belief is that Philip Meryon is either married already, or so entangled that he has no right to ask any decent woman to marry him. I have suspected it a long time. Now you force me to prove it."
Hester turned her head away.
"He told me I wasn't to believe what you said about him!" she said in her most obstinate voice.