‘I certainly will not,’ replied the lady with a movement of the head as if about to look behind, suggesting that she half-hoped to see him still following. But he was not.
‘Then I must. I cannot allow you to distress yourself and a fine fellow like that in consequence of my blunder.’
She stopped and faced him with an expression of supercilious wonder. By this little movement she could look without appearing to turn for the purpose of looking whether or not Maynard had really obeyed her. ‘I do not understand you, Major Dawkins,’ she said with a faint note of chagrin in her musical voice—for Maynard really was not in sight.
‘Of course you cannot. How could you? The letter you have got was not meant for you. I wrote it to another lady, and I beg you to give it back to me, so that no further mischief may come of it.’
‘Another lady! Then I am not the only one he thinks of?’ (She was quoting from the letter.)—‘Oh, Major Dawkins, this is too much. Please, let me go to the house, and do not say another word about it until I have had time to recover and to think.’
The Major stood aghast; he had put his foot in it again. ‘But you are taking me up in quite a wrong way. Certainly you are the only one Maynard thinks of; but he is not the man referred to in the letter. Do give it back to me; and when you are calmer, everything will be explained.’
He pleaded very earnestly; but his object was defeated by the ingenuity on which he had congratulated himself. He had mentioned no names in any of the epistles. The mind of each lady on reading the one she received naturally fastened upon the man in whom she was most interested, and the Major’s excited attempts at explanation failed to make the error clear to them. Their unreasonableness was painful to him; and if he had been less anxious about remedying his error, he would have laughed at it.
‘For whom, then, was the letter written?’ asked Nellie, her indignation now turning against the Major, as she reflected how cruel and how foolish Stanley Maynard would think her if she had accused him of falsehood on no other ground than that she had received a misdirected letter from a friend. ‘I must insist upon an answer.’
‘You really must not insist upon my telling you. I accept all the blame; and it would be another wicked blunder on my part to give you my friend’s name.’
‘In that case, I must decline to return the letter until we are in the presence of my aunt and Mr Maynard.—Meanwhile, I need not trouble you to escort me to the house.’ Nellie walked proudly away; but the poor girl was ready to cry with vexation and with regret for the hastiness of temper which had characterised her conduct towards Stanley Maynard. In the moment of repentance, however, came the remembrance of the words which had distracted her. ‘I want to save you’ (wrote the Major) ‘from a grave misunderstanding.’ (‘Very kind indeed,’ she interjected.) ‘He who is, I know, dearest to you, thinks only of you. Consider his impulsive nature, and pardon his temporary aberration.’ (‘What could that mean, if not that he had been making love to somebody else?’ she asked bitterly. Had she not herself seen how barefacedly he flirted with Mrs John, until she had a tiff with him on the subject? If he could dare so much before her eyes, what might he not do when unchecked by her presence?) ‘Be merciful to him,’ the note proceeded, ‘as hitherto, and you will have your reward. I mean to take the first available opportunity of talking to him after my arrival at Todhurst, and am confident that he will be promptly brought to reason.’