“I think not,” Mr Cheviott replied, dryly, as he sat down. “She has been over-excited, and nowadays she can’t stand that sort of thing.”
Arthur said no more, but he was evidently glad when dinner was over, and Miss Winstanley had left the cousins by themselves.
“Laurence,” he began, eagerly, when the last servant had closed the door and they were really alone, “I am anxious to tell you everything that passed between Alys and me this afternoon. I only thought it fair to her that she should tell you what she chose to tell, first.”
“That was not very much,” said Mr Cheviott, “she evidently is afraid of damaging you by saying much.”
“God bless her,” said Arthur, fervently, “of course she does not know the whole state of the case. But I am perfectly willing to tell you everything, Laurence; in fact, as things are, I should be a fool not to do so. But, in the first place, read this.”
He held out the paper that Alys had written and signed. In spite of his intense anxiety—an anxiety but very partially understood by Captain Beverley, who little knew the personal complications the charge of his affairs had brought upon his cousin—Mr Cheviott could not restrain a smile as he read the words before him.
“An extraordinary document, I must confess,” he said, as he returned it to Arthur. “Upon my word, Beverley, Alys and you are just a couple of children. If only such serious results were not involved, the whole thing would be most laughable. What can have put all this into her head?”
“Her own intentions and her own observations principally, I believe,” said Arthur. “She knew something of—of my admiration for Miss Western, and she suspected that you had exerted your influence to prevent its coming to anything. She knows you to be too honourable and right-minded to interfere in such a matter without good reason—through mere prejudice, for instance.” Mr Cheviott winced a little.
“I cannot say of myself, Arthur, that I was always quite free from prejudice in this matter,” he interrupted, speaking in a low and somewhat constrained voice, “but I am, I believe I am, ready to own myself in the wrong if I have been so.”
Arthur’s face beamed with pleasure.