“I don’t know all things.”
“You know that. Answer.”
“She does not prefer him. He is the smallest part of her calculations. Marriage with you would make no change in her life; she seeks change; she has never been married and lived in Philadelphia—therefore to be married and live in Philadelphia must be glorious.”
“Then if I had money to take her anywhere and everywhere she would have married me. I’ll turn highwayman to get rich then. She shows me every pretty thing she makes; dresses up in all her new dresses and asks me if I feel like the bridegroom lends me her engagement ring when she is tired of it. I’d bite it in two if I dared—reads me his letters and asks me to help her answer them for she can only write a page and a half out of her own head.”
Tessa laughed; it was better to laugh than to be angry, and Sue could not be any body but Sue Greyson.
“She says that her only objection to him is his name and age; she likes my name better, and scribbles Sue Greyson Lake over his old envelopes. I would like to send him one of them. I was reading in the paper this morning of a man who shot the girl that refused him; if I don’t shoot her it will not be her fault, she is driving me mad. If I can’t have her myself, he sha’n’t!”
She dropped her hands and turned away from him.
“Mystic.” But she was among the pansies again.
“Mystic,” with the tone in his voice that she would never forget, “come back. Don’t you throw me over; I shall go to destruction if you do.”
“I can not help you. You do not try to help yourself.”