“She is not without friends. You and Haigh will always look after her. Poor George Ferrers has no one. Moreover, I feel that to some extent I am taking the journey in Penelope’s place.”
“You don’t mean to say that you expected her to go?”
“No, no, though she did cry out at first that she ought to go, not I. What I mean is that it was for her sake Ferrers went to Gamara, hoping the mission would lead to some appointment on which he might marry, and as soon as he is gone she turns round and declares that nothing will induce her to marry him.”
“If you asked my opinion, I should say that he went to Gamara because he had made Alibad too hot to hold him; but if you prefer the other view, I can’t help it. Mr Ross, tell me, what is there about Captain Ferrers which captivates you? You are not generally a lenient judge, but you condone in him things which you would rebuke unsparingly in your other comrades, and you can’t forgive your sister for refusing to marry him, though it’s clear it would mean lifelong misery to her if she did. Why is it?”
Colin looked at her in unfeigned perplexity. “He is my friend, Lady Haigh. When I was a little chap, and he a big fellow always getting into scrapes, we were like Steerforth and Copperfield,—no, I don’t mean that”—perceiving that the comparison might be interpreted unfavourably to Ferrers—“like David and Jonathan—he was David, of course. In those days Pen was as fond of him as I was. I may be unjust to her, as you seem to imply, but I can’t get over her fickleness. It was settled so long ago that he was to marry her and I was to live with them—what better arrangement could there have been? George has never changed, I have never changed, but Penelope has. What led to the change, you know best.”
“Not I,” returned Lady Haigh warmly; “except that it was a very natural repugnance to a lover who seemed to take everything for granted, and who, as we now know, never thought of her at all.”
“Lady Haigh,” said Colin earnestly, “you are doing him an injustice. He did not know of her arrival in India, was not expecting her; but if he had been allowed to meet her, and she had met him on the old footing, without interference, this sad alienation would never have taken place. You meant well when you warned her against him, but——”
“Mr Ross,” said Lady Haigh, settling herself firmly in the saddle, and punctuating her sentences by little taps of her whip on the pommel, “I meant well, and I did well. You would have sacrificed your sister to a man who was not worthy to black her shoes. I saved her.”
“You have always misjudged him, and I fear you always will. I know he has done many wrong and foolish things—he has told me so himself, with bitter regret. But he had cast them behind him; all he needed to help him to rise was the love of a good woman, and he and I both hoped he had found it. I begin to fear now that even before he started on his mission he must have felt some misgivings about Penelope’s affection for him——”
“Probably,” said Lady Haigh savagely. “Oh, go on.”