As he was going down a corridor after saying good-night to Maud Mrs. Grant overtook him.
She said: "How can you account for Mr. Grey's conduct, Sir William? I cannot understand it at all. Of course Maud told you all. You do not think his manner of wooing likely to win?"
"His manner of wooing! I was told nothing of his wooing. Did he make love to Maud?"
"Ah, did she not tell you. I suppose the poor child felt it might not be delicate to mention the matter. He has been making downright love to her. She told me all about it. That's the extraordinary part of the thing; he has been making love to her, and then he breaks out into that violent manner all at once. Acting, indeed! I don't believe a word of it."
"So," thought Sir William to himself, as he went home to his hotel, "I did not know the whole secret, but I think I have it all now. Of course, if he married Maud he need say nothing about the money. It's all gone, no doubt. A man would not tell such a lie and offer to back it up with a bullet. Let me see now. My return has forced his hand. He saw he had no chance of winning Maud. What a preposterous idea to think of his making love to my angel Maud! What insolent presumption! Poor Maud a beggar through his means! It is well I am not. I suppose we can live on the old estate as the Midharsts have done for generations before us. I am full of hope. I am drunk with the belief Maud shall be mine. I think she is glad I am back, and will be glad to see me every day. Fancy seeing Maud every day from this out! Fancy being permitted to take her hand, and to feel that hand on my arm! Fancy being able to say 'Maud' a thousand times a day to herself and not to an image of her. Oh, Maud, my beautiful, be with me for ever as the flowers are with summer.
"What shall I do with this scoundrel Grey? He was very nearly too deep for me. He imposed on me, but that is all over now. What am I to do with him? If he is prosecuted there will be worry, and the past will be gone into, and the peculiarities of Sir Alexander, among other things his hatred of me and the, let me say, friendship between his daughter and me.
"They might call Maud, these lawyers have no taste, no sense of propriety. Think of putting Maud in the box and cross-examining her, and—yes, by Heavens, some of those legal bullies might be ungentle to my lily sweet Maud.
"What a wonderful thing Maud's hand is. It is like the moon, always the same, and yet you can't be in sight of it without looking at it often.
"But this scoundrel Grey. I wish I were done with him. I have given up all taste for affairs and difficulties. I am become bucolic. Suppose he is prosecuted we can't get the money back, for such a prosecution would shut up his Bank. We should have all the trouble and worry for nothing. Then what is the object of prosecuting the scoundrel?
"It is strange about Maud's hand. I thought as I looked at it this evening that if I were dying of wounds on a battle-field, parched with that last terrible thirst, and Maud came and put her hand on my forehead, the thirst would leave me. I know it would.