“Please not. I mean, please don’t come back for me. It is better not. I am quite able to go home alone now; but if you would rather,” (in deference to a shake of his head), “you might leave a message at the hotel, asking Mrs Dalrymple’s maid to come for me. She will not be surprised; she often goes out with me, and she knows this seat.”
“I will do so,” he replied. “So you are with the Dalrymples!”—and Eugenia detected, and was not surprised at, a slight shade of annoyance in his tone.
“Yes,” she replied, simply.
“But—but that will not matter?” he inquired, hesitatingly. “You are your own mistress. You will see me? I shall try to see you in an hour or two again. There will be no difficulty about it?”
He had turned to leave her, but waited an instant for her answer.
“Oh, no, there will be no difficulty. I will see you, or write to you,” she said, a little confusedly.
Her last words struck him rather oddly, but he attributed them to her nervousness and embarrassment; and, fearful of increasing these, he left her, as she desired.
And for the next quarter of an hour, till the maid came for her, Eugenia never took her eyes from the path down which Beauchamp had disappeared. “I shall never see him again,” she said to herself; “never, never. I must not. He must not break his word for me. Oh, I hope—I do hope I shall not live much longer.”
When she got back to the hotel, Eugenia found the Dalrymples both out. Mr Dalrymple she knew was off for the day on some expedition; but his wife, she found on inquiry, had left word for her that she would be in in half an hour. So Eugenia went up to her own room, and sitting down, tried to decide what was best to do. She only saw two things clearly,—she must not risk seeing Beauchamp again, and she must confide in Mrs Dalrymple.
“There is no help for it,” she said to herself. “Even if I told her nothing, she is sure to meet him, and she could not but suspect something. It would never do to let her find it out for herself. Why, Roma Eyrecourt is her cousin! No, I must trust her; and I must get her to let me go home at once. I cannot stay here,—I cannot.”