‘That was partly my doing,’ said Owen.
The same explanation—her want of love for Manston—applied here too, but she shunned the revelation.
‘But never mind,’ added the rector, ‘it was all the greater credit to your womanhood, perhaps. I say, then, get your brother to write a line to Mr. Manston, saying you wish to be satisfied that all is legally clear (in case you should want to marry again, for instance), and I have no doubt that you will be. Or, if you would rather, I’ll write myself?’
‘O no, sir, no,’ pleaded Cytherea, beginning to blanch, and breathing quickly. ‘Please don’t say anything. Let me live here with Owen. I am so afraid it will turn out that I shall have to go to Knapwater and be his wife, and I don’t want to go. Do conceal what we have told you. Let him continue his deception—it is much the best for me.’
Mr. Raunham at length divined that her love for Manston, if it had ever existed, had transmuted itself into a very different feeling now.
‘At any rate,’ he said, as he took his leave and mounted his mare, ‘I will see about it. Rest content, Miss Graye, and depend upon it that I will not lead you into difficulty.’
‘Conceal it,’ she still pleaded.
‘We’ll see—but of course I must do my duty.’
‘No—don’t do your duty!’ She looked up at him through the gloom, illuminating her own face and eyes with the candle she held.
‘I will consider, then,’ said Mr. Raunham, sensibly moved. He turned his horse’s head, bade them a warm adieu, and left the door.