“She’d make me happy, if that’s what you mean.”
“How little, how little you know her! But then, you know her father, and she’s very like him. Of course, he will never permit you to marry her, if he can prevent it. You are a workingman, and he has no thought or sympathy for those from whose ranks he sprang. He has higher ideas for his daughter; I have long seen that. It is pride, pride, pride! Oh, it will have a terrible fall some day, and perhaps you, poor lad, who talk of chance, are the humble instrument selected by an overruling Providence to bring about the humbling of his pride, without which none of us can enter the Kingdom! I see it all now. I see why he sent Edna to school at Eastbourne, although he said it was because we could not get on together. How little prevarication avails! The deceiver shall himself be deceived! In your seemingly chance meeting with me I see the Hand pointing towards truth. Still,” continued Mrs. Sartwell reflectively, as though speaking more to herself than to her hearer, “there is no doubt that, if you took Edna’s fancy, she would marry you in spite of her father or any one else. I have long warned her father that such a time is coming; but alas! my words are unheeded in this house, and the time has come sooner than I expected. I have wondered for some weeks past what was in Edna’s mind. I thought that perhaps she was thinking of Barnard Hope, but I see now I was mistaken. No, she was very likely thinking of you, and her father, discovering it, has packed her off to High Cliff School at Eastbourne, where he probably hopes you cannot visit her. She is a wayward, obstinate child, impulsive, and difficult to manage. She thinks her father is perfection, so you may form your own opinion of how defective her judgment is. Yes, I should not be at all surprised if, when you tell her you love her, she would at once propose to run away with you. Nothing Edna Sartwell would do or say could surprise me.”
Marsten, who had been very uneasy while a forced listener to this exposition of the girl’s character, now rose abruptly, and said he must leave; he had already, he said, taken up too much of Mrs. Sartwell’s time.
“Our time is given us,” replied the good woman, also rising, “to make the best use of, and if we remember that we must give an account of every moment allotted to us, we will not count that time ill-spent which is devoted to the welfare of others. I sincerely trust that what I have said will sink deeply into your mind, and that you will profit by it.”
“I shall not fail to do so.”
“You will understand why I cannot give you any information about Miss Sartwell, or arrange for any meeting between you. It would not be right. If she were now in the house, I could not permit you to see her, since I know you come without her father’s permission. I hope you do not think me harsh in saying this.”
“Oh, not at all.”
“And whatever comes of your infatuation for her, will you do me the justice to remember that my last words to you were to implore you to cast all thought of her from your mind?”
“I shall remember it,” said Marsten.
“If you attempt to meet her, you know you will be doing so against my strict wish and command.”