“Why are you looking at me in that way?” asked Edna fretfully, on receiving no answer; and as she raised herself on the cushions, Bessie could see her face more plainly. It looked very pale, and her eyes were painfully bright, and then she gave a hard little laugh that had no mirth in it. “So mamma or Richard has been talking to you! What a transparent little creature you are, Bessie! You are dreadfully shocked, are you not, that I have sent Neville about his business?”
“Oh, Edna, please don’t talk about it in that way.”
“If I talk about it at all it must be in my own way. If Neville thought I could not live without him, he finds himself mistaken now. I am not the sort of girl who could put up with tyranny; other people may submit to be ordered about and treated like a child, but I am not one of them.”
“Edna, surely you consider that you owe a duty to the man you have promised to marry.”
“I owe him none—I will never owe him any duty.” And here Edna’s manner became excited. “It is mamma I ought to obey, and I will not always yield to her; but I have never given Neville the right to lecture and control me; no man shall—no man!” angrily.
“Edna, how can you bear to part with Mr. Sinclair, when he is so good and loves you so much?”
“I can bear it very well. I can do without him,” she replied obstinately; “at least I have regained my liberty, and become my own mistress.”
“Will that console you for making him miserable? Oh, Edna, if you had only seen his face when I gave him your message, I am sure you must have relented. He has gone away unhappy, and you let him go.”
“Yes, I let him go. How dare he come down here to spy on my movements? Captain Grant, indeed! But it is all of a piece; his jealously is unbearable. I will no longer put up with it. Why do you talk about it, Bessie? You do not know Mr. Neville—Mr. Sinclair, I mean. He is a stranger to you; he has given me plenty to bear during our engagement. He has a difficult nature,it does not suit mine; I must be treated wholly or not at all.”
“Will you not let your mother explain this to him and send for him to come back?” But Edna drew herself up so haughtily that Bessie did not proceed.