She made a violent effort to free herself, and when it failed, she stood still and submitted to be kissed, like one who accepts an experience, with a kind of proud patience.
"You think you love me," she said at last, pushing him away. "I wonder whether you do!"
And flushed and panting, she leant against a tree, looking at him with a strange expression, in which melancholy mingled with resentment; passing slowly into something else—that soft and shaken look, that yearning of one longing and yet fearing to be loved, which had struck dismay into Meynell on the afternoon when he had pursued her to the Abbey.
Philip came close to her.
"You think I have no Roddy!" she said, with bitterness. "Don't kiss me again!"
He refrained. But catching her hand, and leaning against the trunk beside her, he poured into her ear protestations and flattery; the ordinary language of such a man at such a moment. Hester listened to it with a kind of eagerness. Sometimes, with a slight frown, as though ear and mind waited, intently, for something that did not come.
"I wonder how many people you have said the same things to before!" she said suddenly, looking searchingly into his face. "What have you got to tell me about that Scotch girl?"
"Richard's Scotch girl?"—he laughed, throwing his handsome head back against the tree—"whom Richard supposes me to have married? Well, I had a great flirtation with her, I admit, two years ago, and it is sometimes rather difficult in Scotland to know whether you are married or no. You know of course that all that's necessary is to declare yourselves man and wife before witnesses? However—perhaps you would like to see a letter from the lady herself on the subject?"
"You had it ready?" she said, doubtfully.
"Well, considering that Richard has been threatening me for months, not only with the loss of you, but with all sorts of pains and penalties besides, I have had to do something! Of course I have done a great deal. This is one of the documents in the case. It is an affidavit really, drawn up by my solicitor and signed by the lady whom Richard supposes to be my injured wife!"