"Yes—it is true."
"And he has refused to make any provision for his wife and daughter?"
"He has. And more than that"—he looked at her with a defiant candour—"he has tried to bind me in his will to do nothing for them."
"And you have allowed it?"
"I shall soon get round that," he said, scornfully. "There are a thousand ways. Such restrictions are not worth the paper they are written on."
"And meanwhile they are living on charity? And Mr. Melrose, as you say, may last some years. I saw Mrs. Melrose pass this morning in a carriage. She looked like a dying woman."
"I have done my best," he said doggedly. "I have argued—and entreated.
To no avail!"
"But you are taking the money"—the quiet intensity of the tone affected him strangely—"the money, that should be theirs—the money which has been wrung—partly—from this wretched estate. You are accepting gifts and benefits from a man you must loathe and despise!"
She was trembling all over. Her eyes avoided his as she sat downcast; her head bent under the weight of her own words.
There was silence. But a silence that spoke. For what was in truth the meaning of this interview—of his pleading—and her agonized, reluctant judgment? No ordinary acquaintance, no ordinary friendship could have brought it about. Things unspoken, feelings sprung from the flying seeds of love, falling invisible on yielding soil, and growing up a man knoweth not how—at once troubled and united them. The fear of separation had grown, step by step, with the sense of attraction and of yearning. It was because their hearts reached out to each other that they dreaded so to find some impassable gulf between them.