Winny thought, too, for a few moments in silence. She was considering the probability of Tom Murdock's having overheard her conversation with Kate Mulvey from behind some hedge. But the result of her calculations was that it was impossible.
She was right. It was a mere paraphrase of her own question to him, and only shows how two clever people may hit upon the same idea, and express it in nearly the same language. And the question was prompted by his suspicions in the quarter already intimated.
"Yes, I see how it is," he exclaimed, breaking the silence, and giving way to his ungovernable temper. "But, by the hatred I bear to that whelp, that shall never be, at all events. I'll go to your father this moment, and let him know what's going on—"
"And who do you dare to call 'a whelp,' Tom Murdock? If it be Edward Lennon, let me tell you that his little finger is worth your whole head and heart—body and bones together."
"There, there—she acknowledges it. But I'll put a spoke in that whelp's wheel,—for it was him I called a whelp, since you must know,—see if I don't; so let him look out, that's all."
"I have acknowledged nothing, Tom Murdock. A word beyond common civility never passed between Edward Lennon and myself; and take care how you venture to interfere between my father and me. You have got your answer, and I have sworn to it. You have no right to interfere further."
By this time they had reached the end of the lane again; and Winny, with her heart on fire, and her face in a flame, hurried to the house. Fortunately, her father had not returned [{794}] from the fields, and rushing to her own room, she locked the door, took off her bonnet and cloak, and "threw herself" (I believe that is the proper expression) upon the bed. Perhaps a sensation novelist would add that she "burst into an agony of tears."
CHAPTER XII.
Winny lay for nearly an hour meditating upon the past, the present, and the future. Upon the whole she did not regret what had occurred, either before or after she had met Tom Murdock, and she cooled down into her accustomed self-possession sooner than she had supposed possible.
One grand object had been attained. Tom Murdock had come to the point, and she had given him his final and irrevocable answer, if she had twenty fathers thundering parental authority in her ears. A spot of blue sky had appeared too in the east, above the outline of Shanvilla mountain, in which the morning-star of her young life might soon arise, and shine brightly through the flimsy clouds—or she could call them nothing but flimsy now—which had hitherto darkened her hopes. What if Tom Murdock was a villain?—and she believed he was: what dared he—what could he do? Pshaw, nothing! But, oh that the passage-of-arms between herself and her father was over! "Then," thought she, "all might be plain sailing before me."