But he was determined to have done with it and drove himself on remorselessly.
“On your marriage,” he said quietly, “or, rather, I should say on your engagement to be married.”
“To whom?” asked Frank, in a constrained voice.
“To Miss Freer,” replied Ralph.
“And who told you?” asked Frank again.
“No one in particular,” answered Ralph, beginning to chafe under all this cross-questioning; “I heard it in several quarters, and you may be sure I felt no doubt of the truth of the report, or I certainly would not have motioned any young lady’s name, as I have just now done.”
He spoke stiffly. He could not understand Frank’s behaviour. But his bewilderment changed to utter astonishment, when suddenly Captain Berwick turned round upon him.
“ ‘No one in particular;’ you say Sir Ralph Severn, told you this piece of News. Then perhaps you will be so good as till this friend of yours ‘no one in particular,’ that he or she will do better in future to refrain in the first place from believing, and in the second place from circulating, such idle and mischievous tales, for which there is no foundation whatever in fact. As to whether this piece of advice may not with peculiar propriety be extended to yourself, I leave you to judge.”
So saying he bowed stiffly, his face flushed with excitement and indignation, and turning sharply in an opposite direction, left Ralph to pursue his walk alone.
The whole interview had passed so rapidly that Ralph felt thoroughly confused. Frank had left him no time to reply to his extraordinary outburst, and indeed, had he done so, Ralph would hardly have known what to say. He did not feel angry, and would have been ready enough to apologise for however unintentionally, hurt or annoyed his hot-blooded companion: though really it was difficult to see in what way he had done so! As he walked on slowly his thoughts began gradually to emerge from their bewilderment, and to take the only form by which it appeared to him that the riddle could be explained.