She stared at him, in perplexity at first, not understanding him; then in horror, as she discerned on a sudden what he meant. "To-day?" she faltered. "Why to-day, Tom, more than on other days?"
His face fell. "Is't odd," he said, "to want to look one's best to be married? At any rate, I never thought so. Until yesterday," he added with a glance at her dress.
She was sitting on the narrow window-seat; she stood up, her back to the window. "To be married?" she exclaimed. "Oh, Tom! It is impossible--impossible you intend to go on with it, after all you have heard!"
His face grew darker and more sullen. "At any rate I am not going to marry Hawkesworth!" he sneered. And then as she winced under the cruel stroke he repented of it. "I only mean," he said hurriedly, "that--that I don't see what he and his villainy have to do with my marriage."
"But, oh, Tom, it is all one!" Sophia cried, clasping her hands nervously. "He was with--with her, when you met her. I heard you say so last night. I heard you say that if it had not been for him you would never have seen her, or known her."
"Weil!" Tom answered. "And what of that? If her chaise had not broken down, I should never have seen her, or known her. That is true, too. But what has that to do with it, I'd like to know?"
"He planned it!"
"He could not plan my falling in love," Tom answered, stroking his chin fatuously.
"But if you had seen the book," Sophia retorted, "the book he snatched from me, you would have seen it written there! His plan was to procure you to be married first. You know you forfeit ten thousand pounds to me, Tom, and ten to Anne, if you marry without your guardian's consent?"
"Hang them and the ten thousand!" Tom cried grandly. "Lord, miss, I've plenty left! You are welcome to it, and so is sister. As for their consent, they'd not give it till I was Methuselah!"