"Considering it! And when—when—is it likely to be?"
"Oh—that is for him, for Mr. Hawtree to decide, but I think it will be at Noël, Christmas time, and in Montreal. Next week I pay some visits; after that I go to the Hotel Champlain, in Jacques Cartier Square, to prepare myself for my new rôle, you see."
"Your new rôle? But are you not then leaving the theatre? Oh—I understand now, I see what you mean. And you think this is your duty, to end your life thus by consenting to marry this man?"
"To end my life? to begin it rather. Believe me—it is better for me so."
Great distress showed in Ringfield's voice and bearing; he was in that state of mind when it became necessary to insist upon his sufferings, to rehearse his wrongs, and thus an hour wore away in the petty strife which in his case was characterized by ceaseless strivings to win again that place in her heart filched from him by her old lover; on her part the quarrel and the cold weather acted equally in stimulating her to fresh coquetries. Farther and farther they withdrew into the heart of the snowy wood, till, when quite remote, they sat down on a fallen log, beautiful in summer with mosses, lichen and waving ferns, now converted to a long white cylinder, softly rounded at either end. Here Ringfield's ardour and his conscientious feelings for her future broke out in a long and impassioned speech in which he implored her to change her mind while there was time and to remember her warm promises to himself. He did not embrace her, and throughout his discourse, for such it might aptly be termed, he was more the saviour of souls than the lover.
"And although I claim no reward for the fact," he concluded sternly, "it is due me, when I tell you that I know all about that poor child at Hawthorne, poor Angeel, and that I am going to take the whole matter on myself and remove her to a more suitable home and surroundings."
Miss Clairville flushed an angry red. "You—you know all?" she repeated. "But how—how did you find out? You have seen Henry, perhaps—oh! you have been talking to him, my poor brother!"
"No," returned Ringfield. "You forget that people talk to me, bring these stories to me, make me the recipient of confessions. I have seen and I have heard, therefore I know. But I will do as I have said. I shall write to the proper people to look after Angeel, and I shall see that she is removed before long from Hawthorne."
"Where to?"
"Perhaps to a hospital; that of the Incarnation at Lalurette."