"You are a fool," he said, hoarsely. "Hester! I love you all the same, but you are a fool! Didn't I tell you at first I was risking everything. Heavens, can't you understand! Desert my post! I have no post. It will be better for them that I should be out of the way. I—must go—confound it! Hester, for God's sake, haven't you made up your mind! Do you know that every moment I stand here I am in danger? Come! come! I will tell you everything on the way."
She gave a cry as if his pressure, the almost force he used to draw her with him, had hurt her. She drew her hand out of his.
"I never thought it possible," she said, "I never thought it possible! Oh, Edward! danger, what is danger? There's no danger but going wrong. Stop: my love—yes, you are my love—there has never been any one between us. If you have been foolish in your speculations, or whatever they are, or even wrong—stay, Edward, stay, and put it right. Oh, stay, and put it right! There can be no danger if you will stand up and say 'I did it, I will put it right;' and I—if you care for me—I will stand by you through everything. I will be your clerk; I will work for you night and day. There is no trouble I will not save you, Edward. Oh, Edward, for God's sake, think of Catherine, how good she has been to you; and it will break her heart. Think of Vernon's, which we have all been so proud of, which gives us our place in the country. Edward, think of—Won't you listen to me? You will be a man dishonoured, they will call you—they will think you—Edward!"
"All this comes finely from you," he cried, "beautifully from you! You have a right to set up on the heights of honour, and as the champion of Vernon's. You, John Vernon's daughter, the man that ruined the bank."
"The man that—— Oh, my God! Edward, what are you saying—my father! the man——"
He laughed out—laughed aloud, forgetting precautions.
"Do you mean to say you did not know—the man that was such a fool, that left it a ruin on Catherine's hands? You did not know why she hated you? You are the only one in the place that does not. I have taken the disease from him, through you; it must run in the blood. Come, come, you drive me into heroics too. There is enough of this; but you've no honour to stand upon, Hester; we are in the same box. Come along with me now."
Hester felt that she had been stricken to the heart. She drew away from him till she got to the rough support of the wall, and leant upon it, hiding her face, pressing her soft cheek against the roughness of the brick. He drew her other arm into his, trying to lead her away; but she resisted, putting her hand on him, and pushing him from her with all her force.
"There is not another word to be said," she cried. "Go away, if you will go; go away. I will never go with you! All that is over now."
"This is folly," he said. "Why did you come here if you had not made up your mind? And if I tell you a piece of old news, a thing that everybody knows, is that to make a breach between us? Hester! where are you going? the other way—the other way!"