"It cannot be of much consequence to you whether I believe it or not," she answers, still with that freezing calm of voice and face. "You have, at all events, adopted the best method of obtaining your release from that engagement, which you so broadly hinted, only yesterday afternoon, that you wished to be free from. You have your wish—you are free!"
"As you will," he answers, gloomily. "God knows there never was much love in our connection; an iller-mated pair never came together; it was a mere matter of business on both sides. But, as to saying that the pure accident which has brought Miss Craven and me into slight and transient collision to-night can have any influence upon the conclusion or continuance of our engagement—it is tantamount to telling me that what I have sworn to you, upon my honour as a gentleman, to be true, is false!" he says, his face growing white and fierce.
"Is it?" she says, with a quietly enraging smile; having that confidence in the shield of womanhood, which makes so many a woman gall a man to the uttermost, and expect him to stand by, serene, polite, and smiling. "Unfortunately," she continues, "I am behind the spirit of the age; I am shackled with obsolete old notions of propriety and decency; and therefore—as you have no longer any smallest control over my actions—will you be so good as to allow me to go?"
He drops her hand instantly, and, opening the door for her, bows his head haughtily, saying, "Go! I have neither the wish nor the power to detain you;" and as he so speaks she passes out.
Meanwhile Esther, having slidden from her bed, stands with trembling limbs, grasping the back of a chair, and gazing from speaker to speaker with a world of surprise and horror in her great innocent eyes. As Miss Blessington leaves the room, St. John turns to her:
"My darling!" he says, with an accent of passionate remorse, "how will you ever forgive me for having exposed you to this!"
She turns away from him, and covers her burning face with her hands. "Go!" she says, faintly—"go, this minute! Don't say another word! Don't give her any more reason for her wicked slanders! Go!"
And he goes.