“But not without explaining the reason to—to the Westerns?” said Captain Beverley, looking up quickly.
“Explaining!” repeated Mr Cheviott, with a shade of contempt in his tone, “what in this world could you explain? Think of the position you would put the girl in by letting her understand the real state of the case! What could she say or do? Her promising to wait for you would be ruin to you, and her throwing you over, should you distinctly propose to her, would seem to her—if she be what you believe her—shameful. I suppose you have not done anything definite? You are not engaged to her?”
“No,” said Arthur, reluctantly. “She couldn’t exactly bring me up for breach of promise, if that’s what you think her capable of,” he went on, with a half-bitter laugh; “but I consider myself more bound to her than if we were engaged. Then I should have given her a right to assert herself, then she could insist on my explaining myself. My going away, as you propose, Laurence, seems to me the meanest, most dishonourable attempt at sneaking out of the whole affair—and, good Heavens, what will they think of me?”
“Hardly so badly as they will think of me,” thought Mr Cheviott, while a vision of the pale indignation of Mary Western’s honest face flashed before his eyes. But he said nothing.
“Laurence, I say, what will they think of me?” repeated Arthur, impatiently.
Mr Cheviott took his pipe out of his mouth again, and, in his turn, stared into the fire.
“It can’t be helped; it’s the only thing to do,” he replied, decidedly.
Captain Beverley got up and walked excitedly up and down the room.
“What will Alys, even, think of me?” he exclaimed. “She knows enough to suspect more. Laurence, is there nothing—are you certain there is nothing that can be done to get me out of this cursed complication? Would there be no use in getting another opinion upon the will?”
Mr Cheviott shook his head.