“Do you care as much as that?”
There was a horrified astonishment in his tone, as if remorseful for some former incredulity, and for once Nature was too strong for Bonnybell. She saw in the mirror of Edward’s face that there must be a scornful denial of his accusation on her own. But in a flash she had again taken hold of herself and of her part. Not for a second must she forget, or let others forget, that she was broken-hearted at the loss of Toby.
“It would be a solution; and—and—it is not easy to have two people to fight, myself as well as him! Wish me well through it!” She was gone.
The engagement had lasted three hours, so the clock told the watchers, who—not together, for Camilla had rigorously forced herself to her daily desk—were awaiting the issue of the duel.
“I am glad that you let yourself be persuaded by me not to go to London to-day,” Edward’s wife had said to him before withdrawing.
“I do not quite know what good I do by staying,” he answered restlessly.
“In the case of two such perfectly undisciplined natures one never knows what developments may arise,” she rejoined.
With this imperfect consolation for his wasted morning, she left him. Since then, against his will, chidden by his common sense—for was not the smoking-room that held his uneasy idleness miles away from the morning-room?—he had been listening, asking himself whether, although unquestionably out of reach of any ordinary sound, the noise of—say a pistol or revolver shot might not penetrate to his straining ears? In vain to argue down the ludicrous idea. Did the danger seem real to her, or was the suggestion only thrown out to give herself a heightened interest in his eyes? She was quite capable of it. Not frightened either. Seldom as—he now realized—she spoke truth, she had spoken it then. Blanched with excitement, not fear.
Had Mr. Tancred’s eye been able to verify or correct the notions upon the current melodrama presented by his imagination, he would have seen the object of his speculations in even sorer straits than he had pictured her. The end of those dire hours left her and her antagonist exactly where it found them. From the engulfment of the initial embrace her spirit had cried out to itself, “This is exceedingly disagreeable, but I suppose it will end some time. How glad I am that I drank dear Camilla’s coffee! I do not think I could have gone through with it if I had not! His tears are taking all the curl out of my fringe. Poor devil, if he only knew how little worth while it all is!”
The same inward ejaculations were pouring themselves forth in her inmost soul at the end of the three hours, when her situation was no further amended than that she was sitting on a chair—a simulated swoon had gained her this concession—with Toby kneeling before her, his uninvited head rolling about upon her knees—while between loud sobs he formulated, with the iteration of a jay or a pie, his simple thesis: “You said you loved me! You promised to marry me! I have done nothing to make you change your mind! You cannot, and shall not chuck me.”