“Yet it is wrong for you to stay. O Elfride! what have you committed yourself to? It is ruin to your good name to run to me like this! Has not your first experience been sufficient to keep you from these things?”
“My name! Harry, I shall soon die, and what good will my name be to me then? Oh, could I but be the man and you the woman, I would not leave you for such a little fault as mine! Do not think it was so vile a thing in me to run away with him. Ah, how I wish you could have run away with twenty women before you knew me, that I might show you I would think it no fault, but be glad to get you after them all, so that I had you! If you only knew me through and through, how true I am, Harry. Cannot I be yours? Say you love me just the same, and don’t let me be separated from you again, will you? I cannot bear it—all the long hours and days and nights going on, and you not there, but away because you hate me!”
“Not hate you, Elfride,” he said gently, and supported her with his arm. “But you cannot stay here now—just at present, I mean.”
“I suppose I must not—I wish I might. I am afraid that if—you lose sight of me—something dark will happen, and we shall not meet again. Harry, if I am not good enough to be your wife, I wish I could be your servant and live with you, and not be sent away never to see you again. I don’t mind what it is except that!”
“No, I cannot send you away: I cannot. God knows what dark future may arise out of this evening’s work; but I cannot send you away! You must sit down, and I will endeavour to collect my thoughts and see what had better be done.
At that moment a loud knocking at the house door was heard by both, accompanied by a hurried ringing of the bell that echoed from attic to basement. The door was quickly opened, and after a few hasty words of converse in the hall, heavy footsteps ascended the stairs.
The face of Mr. Swancourt, flushed, grieved, and stern, appeared round the landing of the staircase. He came higher up, and stood beside them. Glancing over and past Knight with silent indignation, he turned to the trembling girl.
“O Elfride! and have I found you at last? Are these your tricks, madam? When will you get rid of your idiocies, and conduct yourself like a decent woman? Is my family name and house to be disgraced by acts that would be a scandal to a washerwoman’s daughter? Come along, madam; come!”
“She is so weary!” said Knight, in a voice of intensest anguish. “Mr. Swancourt, don’t be harsh with her—let me beg of you to be tender with her, and love her!”
“To you, sir,” said Mr. Swancourt, turning to him as if by the sheer pressure of circumstances, “I have little to say. I can only remark, that the sooner I can retire from your presence the better I shall be pleased. Why you could not conduct your courtship of my daughter like an honest man, I do not know. Why she—a foolish inexperienced girl—should have been tempted to this piece of folly, I do not know. Even if she had not known better than to leave her home, you might have, I should think.”