“He came and spent the day with you,” said their anxious neighbour, “and he was obliged to go away! I confess I think I merited different treatment. I wish I could make out what you all mean——”
“The fact is, Sir Edward,” said Winnie, “that Major Percival was sent away.... He is a very important person, no doubt; but he can’t do just as he pleases. My aunt is so good that she tries to keep up a little fiction, but he and I have done with each other,” said Winnie in her excitement, notwithstanding that she had been up to this moment so reticent and self-contained.
“Who sent him away?” asked Sir Edward, with a pitiful, confidential look to Aunt Agatha, and a slight shake of his head over the very bad business—a little pantomime which moved Winnie to deeper wrath and discontent.
“I sent him away,” said Mrs. Percival, with as much dignity as this ebullition of passion would permit her to assume.
“My dear Winnie,” said Sir Edward, “I am very, very sorry to hear this. Think a little of what is before you. You are a young woman still; you are both young people. Do you mean to live here all the rest of your life, and let him go where he pleases—to destruction, I suppose, if he likes? Is that what you mean? And yet we all remember when you would not hear a word even of advice—would not listen to anybody about him. He had not been quite sans reproche when you married him, my dear; and you took him with a knowledge of it. If that had not been the case, there might have been some excuse. But what I want you to do is to look it in the face, and consider a little. It is not only for to-day, or to-morrow—it is for your life.”
Winnie gave a momentary shudder, as if of cold, and drew her shawl closer around her. “I had rather not discuss our private affairs,” she replied: “they are between ourselves.”
“But the fact is, they are not between yourselves,” said Sir Edward, who was inspired by the great conviction of doing his duty. “You have taken the public into your confidence by coming here. I am a very old friend, both of yours and his, and I might do some good, if you let me try. I dare say he is not very far from here; and if I might mediate between you——”
A sudden gleam shot out from Winnie’s eyes—perhaps it was a sudden wild hope—perhaps it was merely the flash of indignation; but still the proposal moved her. “Mediate!” she said, with an air which was intended for scorn; but her lips quivered as she repeated the word.
“Yes,” said Sir Edward, “I might, if you would have confidence in me. No doubt there are wrongs on both sides. He has been impatient, and you have been exacting, and—— Where are you going?”
“It is no use continuing this conversation,” said Winnie. “I am going to my room. If I were to have more confidence in you than I ever had in any one, it would still be useless. I have not been exacting. I have been—— But it is no matter. I trust, Aunt Agatha, that you will forgive me for going to my own room.”