“Eh?” He turned sharply. “What’s that?” She had not been able to control her voice, and he knew in a moment that something was wrong. “What ha’ you been doing?”
Now! Now, or never! The words she had so often repeated to herself rang in her ears. “Do you know who it was,” she said, “who saved you that night, sir? The night you were—hurt?”
He turned himself a little more towards her. “Who? Who it was?” he repeated. “What art talking about, girl? Why, the lad, to be sure. Who else?”
“No, sir,” she said, shaking from head to foot, so that the table rocked audibly under her hand. “It was Mr. Ovington’s son. And—and I love him. And he wishes to marry me.”
The Squire did not say a word. He sat, his head erect still as a stone.
“And I want—to help him,” she added, her voice dying away with the words. Her knees were so weak, that but for the support of the table she must have sunk on the floor.
Still the Squire did not speak. His jaw had fallen. He sat, arrested in the attitude of listening, his face partly turned from her, his pipe held stiffly in his hand. At last, “Ovington’s son wants to marry you?” he repeated, in a tone so even that it might have deceived many.
“He saved your life!” she cried. She clung desperately to that.
“And you love him?”
“Oh, I do! I do!”