“Then may I—may I return presently?” he murmured, with a nervous cough. “You must stand in need of advice? And—and by some one near you? When you are more composed perhaps? Yes. Not that there is any hurry,” he added quickly, frightened by a movement of her shoulders. “Not at all. I’ll not say another word now! By-and-by, by-and-by, dear young lady, you will be more composed. To-morrow, if you prefer it, or even the next day. I shall wait, and I shall be here.”
She gave her eyes a last dab and turned.
“I do not blame you,” she said, her voice broken by a sob. “You did not know me. But you must go back—you must go back to him at once and tell him that I—that he has punished me as sharply as he could wish.” She dabbed her face again. “I do not know what I shall think of him presently, but I—— Oh, oh!” with a fresh burst of tears, “that he should do this to me!—that he should do this!”
He did not know her, as she said; and, small blame to him, he misread her. Because she neither stormed nor sneered, but only wept in this heart-broken fashion, like a child cowed by a beating, he fancied that the task before him was not above his powers. He thought her plastic, a creature easily moulded; and that already she was bending herself to the fate proposed for her. And in soothing tones, for he was genuinely sorry for her, “There, there, my dear young lady,” he said, “I know it is something hard. It is hard. But in a little while, a very little while, I trust, it will seem less hard. And there is time before us. Time to become acquainted, time to gain knowledge of one another. Plenty of time! There is no hurry.”
She lowered her handkerchief from her eyes and looked at him, over it, as if, without understanding, she thanked him for his sympathy. With her tear-washed eyelashes and rumpled hair and neck-ribbon she looked more childish, she seemed to him less formidable. He took heart of grace to go on.
“Captain Clyne shall be told what you feel about it,” he said, thinking to soothe and humour her. “He shall be told all in good time. And everything I can say and anything I can do to lighten the burden and meet your wishes——”
“You?”
“——I shall do, be sure!”
He was beginning to feel his feet, and he spoke earnestly. He spoke, to do him justice, with feeling.
“Your happiness,” he said, “will be the one, at any rate the first, and main object of my life. As time goes on I hope and believe that you will find a recompense in the service and devotion of a life, although a humble life; and always I will be patient. I will wait, my dear young lady, in good hope.”