"Oh, Mr. Trelyon," she said with a great burst of confidence, "I did so fear that you might be indifferent!"
"Indifferent!" said he with some bitterness. "Perhaps that is the best thing that could happen, only it isn't very likely to happen. Did you ever see anybody placed as I am placed, Mabyn? Nothing but stumbling-blocks every way I look. Our family have always been hot-headed and hot-tempered: if I told my grandmother at this minute how I am situated, I believe she would say, 'Why don't you go like a man and run off with the girl?'"
"Yes!" said Mabyn, quite delighted.
"But suppose you've bothered and worried the girl until you feel ashamed of yourself, and she begs of you to leave her, aren't you bound in fair manliness to go?"
"I don't know," said Mabyn doubtfully.
"Well, I do. It would be very mean to pester her. I'm off as soon as these people leave the Hall. But then there are other things. There is your sister engaged to this fellow out in Jamaica—"
"Isn't he a horrid wretch?" said Mabyn between her teeth.
"Oh, I quite agree with you. If I could have it out with him now! But, after all, what harm has the man done? Is it any wonder he wanted to get Wenna for a wife?"
"Oh, but he cheated her," said Mabyn warmly. "He persuaded her and reasoned with her, and argued her into marrying him. And what business had he to tell her that love between young people is all bitterness and trial, and that a girl is only safe when she marries a prudent and elderly man who will look after her? Why, it is to look after him that he wants her. Wenna is going to him as a housekeeper and a nurse. Only—only, Mr. Trelyon, she hasn't gone to him just yet!"
"Oh, I don't think he did anything unfair," the young man said gloomily. "It doesn't matter, anyhow. What I was going to say is, that my grandmother's notion of what one of our family ought to do in such a case can't be carried out: whatever you may think of a man, you can't go and try to rob him of his sweetheart behind his back. Even supposing she were willing to break with him—which she is not—you've at least got to wait to give the fellow a chance."