"Not going!" he laughed, and took her hands into his, with an impatience, however, which made him restless, which might have made him violent, "that is a pretty thing to tell me just when you have met me for the purpose. I know you want to be persuaded. But come, come; I will persuade you as much as you can desire when I get you safe into the train."
"It is not persuasion I want. If it was right I would go if all the world were against it. Edward, do you know what it looks like? It looks like treachery—like deserting your post—like leading them into danger, then leaving them in their ignorance to stumble out as they can."
"Well?" he said. "Is that all? If we get off with that we shall do very well, Hester. I shouldn't wonder if they said harder things still."
"If the bank should—come to harm. I am a Vernon too. I can't bear it should come to harm. If anything was to happen——"
"If it will abridge this discussion—which surely is ill-timed, Hester, to say the least—I may admit at once that it is likely to come to harm. I don't know how things are to be tided over this time. The bank's on its last legs. We needn't make any mystery on the subject. What's that?"
It was a sound—of intolerable woe, indignation, and wrath from behind the wall. Catherine was listening, with her hands clasped hard to keep herself up. It was not a cry which would have betrayed her, but an involuntary rustle or movement, a gasp, indistinguishable from so many other utterances of the night.
"I suppose it was nothing," he added. "Hester, come; we can't stand here like two—thieves, as you say, to be found out by anybody. There's that villain Marshall, Catherine's spy, always on the outlook. He tells his mistress everything. However, that does not matter much now. By to-morrow, dear, neither you nor I need mind what they say. There will be plenty said—we must make up our minds to that. I suppose you gave your mother a hint——"
"My mother, a hint? Edward! how could I dare to say to her—What would she think? but oh, that comes so long a way after! The first thing is, you cannot go; Edward, you must not go, a man cannot be a traitor. It is just the one thing—If all was plain sailing, well; but when things are going badly— Oh no, no, I will not hear you say so. You cannot desert your post."
He took hold of her arm in the intensity of his vexation and rage.