“I can understand now,” she went on. “He did not know of my engagement that time he made love, when his life was at stake.”
“Then he’s told you all about it?” said the old man, beginning to take some interest, now that he had provided for his own comfort.
“About what?” asked Elizabeth, showing a woman’s consistency, in being surprised that he seemed to know what she had been addressing him about.
“About pretending he loved you,—to save his life,” replied Mr. Valentine, innocently, considering that her supposed acquaintance with the whole secret made him free to discuss it with her.
Elizabeth’s astonishment, unexpected as it was by him, surprised the old man in turn, and also gave 202 him something of a fright. So the two stared at each other.
“Pretending he loved me!” she repeated, reflectively. “Pretending! To save his life! Now I see!” The effect of the revelation on her almost made Mr. Valentine jump out of his chair. “For only I could save him!” she went on. “There was no other way! Oh, how I have been fooled! I—tricked by a miserable rebel! Made a laughing-stock! Oh, to think he did not really love me, and that I—Oh, I shall choke! Send some one to me,—Molly, aunt Sally, any one! Go! Don’t sit there gazing at me like an owl! Go away and send some one!”
Mr. Valentine, glad of reason for an honorable retreat from this whirlwind that threatened soon to fill the whole room, departed with as much activity as he could command.
“Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?” Elizabeth asked of the air around her. “I must repay him for his duplicity. I shall never rest a moment till I do! What an easy dupe he must think me! Oh-h-h!”
She brought her hand violently down on the table but fortunately struck something comparatively soft. In her fury, she clutched this something, raised it from the table, and saw what it was.