“Roma,” he said, “you and your heart are far too good for me. My darling, how shall I ever repay the sacrifices you will make for me? Are you sure, quite sure, you will never repent it? Have you considered it all? Think of having to live at Wareborough.”
“Gerald, you are too bad! Do you know you have all but driven me into proposing to you? I shall think you repent your bargain if you say much more. Living at Wareborough! Nonsense. I should be quite pleased and content to live in a coal mine with you. There now, I am not going to spoil you by any more pretty speeches, which, by rights, sir, please to remember, should come from the other side.”
With such encouragement, Mr Thurston, considering it was the first time he had actually tried his hand at anything of the kind, acquitted himself very fairly, and the remaining two miles of their walk seemed to them but a small fraction of the real distance. They had time, however, to discuss a good many aspects of their plans. “What would Frank and Sydney think? how astonished they would be!”
“How pleased Eugenia would feel!” etc, etc, before they re-entered the park and came within sight of the house.
They approached it from one side, intending, however, to enter by the front door. What was it, as they drew near, that gave Roma an indescribable feeling that something had happened since they went out? She could not have told. The hall door was half-open for one thing, but it was not that. It was a so-called “instinct”—one of those subtile revelations which science has not yet learnt to define or explain by any thoroughly apprehended law.
There was hardly time for even the realisation of a fear. The wave of vague apprehension had hardly ruffled the girl’s happy spirit when it was confirmed. The hall door opened a little wider, a little figure, evidently on the watch, rushed out.
“Aunty Woma,” cried Floss, flinging herself into Miss Eyrecourt’s arms, forgetful of the certain amount of awe with which Roma still inspired her, regardless of the awful presence of Mr Thurston; “Aunty Woma, something dweadful has happened. The ponies has wunned away, and little Tim has wunned home to tell. Uncle Beachey is killed quite dead on the dot, Tim says, and I don’t know where Aunty ’Genia is.”
“What does she say?” asked Gerald, hoarsely.
“Tell him; say it again, Floss,” said Roma, forcing her pale lips to move; and as well as she could, for her sobs, the child repeated her ghastly tale.
Without another word, Mr Thurston rushed off, and in an instant was lost to Roma’s sight among the thick growing shrubs that lay in the direction of the stables. What became of Floss her aunt never knew; probably in her intense anxiety to know more, the child followed the person whom she imagined most likely to obtain further information. However that may have been, Roma found herself alone—alone with this strange dreamlike feeling of horror and grief for Beauchamp’s untimely fate, which it never occurred to her to doubt—alone with a yet more terrible companion. What was the meaning of this sudden misery which overwhelmed her? Whence had come this poisonous suggestion which, so marvellously speedy is the growth of thought, had, even while the child was speaking, sprung to life in her brain? Beauchamp dead, Eugenia free, and the words which her newly made lover had spoken not an hour before ringing in her ears: