“What is it, Edmund?” She relapsed into the chair, which supplied a sort of framework on which mind and body seemed alike to rest.
Edmund drew a chair opposite to her, close to her, and threw himself down in it. His hand raised to enhance his rhetoric was almost like the threat of a blow.
“Look here,” he repeated; “I have told you before all I feel about Rosalind!”
“And I have told you,” she said, with a faint, rising color, “that you have no right to call her by that name. There is no sort of link between Miss Trevanion and you.”
“She does not think so,” he answered, growing red. “She has always felt there was a link, although she didn’t know what. There are two other fellows after her now. I know that one of them, and I rather think both of them, are hunting for you, by way of getting a hold on Rosalind. One of them asked me just now if I wouldn’t help him. Me! And that woman that was nurse at Highcourt, that began all the mischief, is here. So you will be hunted out whatever you do. And John Trevanion is at me, asking me what had I to do with his brother? I don’t know how he knows, but he does know. I’ve told him there was a family connection, but that I couldn’t say what till I had consulted—”
“You said that, Edmund? A—family connection!”
“Yes, I did. What else could I say? And isn’t it true? Now, here are two things you can do: one would be kind, generous, all that I don’t expect from you; the other would, at least, leave us to fight fair. Look here! I believe they would be quite glad. It would be a way of smoothing up everything and stopping all sorts of scandal. Come up there with me straight and tell them who I am; and tell Rosalind that you want her to cast off the others and marry me. She will do whatever you tell her.”
“Never, never, Edmund.” She had begun to shake her head, looking at him, for some time before he would permit her voice to be heard. “Oh, ask me anything but that!”
“Anything but the only thing,” he said; “that is like you; that is always the way. Can’t you see it would be a way of smoothing over everything? It would free Rosalind—it would free them all; if she were my—”
She put out her hand to stop him. “No, Edmund, you must not say it. I cannot permit it. That cannot be. You do not understand her, nor she you. I can never permit it, even if—even if—”