“Oh, Edward, don’t make it harder! It is hard upon us all, both them and me. It is desperate, the position we are in. I cannot endure it, and they cannot endure it. What are we to do?”
“Nor can I endure it,” he said. “Let them contest the will. It is the best way; but in that case they cannot remain under your roof.”
“Who gave you the right to dictate what we are to do?” cried Tom, who was beside himself with passion. “This is my father’s house, not yours. It is my sister’s, if you like, but not yours. Winnie, let that fellow go; what has he got to do between us? Let him go away; he has got nothing to do here.”
“You are of that opinion too?” Langton said, turning to her with a pale smile. “Be it so. I came to look after Miss Chester’s health, not to disturb a family party.”
“Edward!” Winifred cried. The name he gave her went to her heart. He had detached himself from her hold; he would not see the hand which she held out to him. His ear was deaf to her voice. She had deserted him, he said to himself. She had brought insult upon him, and an atrocious accusation, and she had not resented it, showed no indignation, rejected his help, prepared to smooth over and conciliate the miserable cad who had permitted himself to do this thing. Beneath all this blaze of passion, there was no doubt also the bitterness of disappointment with which he saw the destruction of those hopes which he had been foolishly entertaining, allowing himself to cherish, although he knew all the difficulties in the way. He saw and felt that, right or wrong, she would give all away, that Bedloe was farther from him than ever it had been. He loved Winifred, it was not for Bedloe he had sought her; but everything surged up together at this moment in a passion of mortification, resentment, and shame. She had not maintained his cause, she had refused his intervention, she had allowed these intruders to regard him as taking more upon him than she would permit, claiming an authority she would not grant. He neither looked at her, nor listened to the call which she repeated with a cry that might have moved a savage. A man humiliated, hurt in his pride, is worse than a savage.
“Take care of her,” he said, wringing Miss Farrell’s hand as he passed her, and without another look or word went away.
Winifred, standing, following with her eyes, with consternation unspeakable, his departing figure, felt the strength ebb out of her as he disappeared. But yet there was relief in his departure, too. A woman has often many pangs to bear between her husband and her family. She has to endure and maintain often the authority which she does not acknowledge, which in her right he assumes over them, which is a still greater offence to her than to them; and an instinctive sense that her lover should not have any power over her brothers was strong in her notwithstanding her love. Her agitated heart returned after a moment’s pause to the problem which was no nearer solution than before. She said softly—
“All that I can do for your sake I will do, whatever I may suffer. There is one thing I will not do, and that is, defend myself or him. If you do not know that neither I nor he have done anything against you, it is not for me to say it. It is hard, very hard for us all. If you will advise with me like friends what to do, I shall be very, very thankful; but if not, you must do what you will, and I will do what I can, and there is no more to say.”
The interruption, though it had been hard to bear, had done her good. She went back to her chair, and leant back, letting her head rest on good Miss Farrell’s faithful shoulder. A kind of desperation had come to her. She had sent her lover away, and nothing remained for her, but only this forlorn duty.
“Edward will not come back,” she said in Miss Farrell’s ear.