"In a week or a fortnight," Michael continued, "there will be no trace of the old family at Trevethlan. The steward is now preparing to quit. Mr. Randolph is wandering somewhere in poverty and want. Do you suppose, ma'am, that he has forgotten that walk on the cliff, with—with your daughter?"
Mrs. Pendarrel was surprised. She could not imagine to what end so strange an introduction was tending. She listened in silence.
"No, ma'am," said her protégé. "Love will not grow cold in ruin."
And then Sinson, in incoherent language, proceeded to contrast Randolph's circumstances with his own. It was a speech which he had often meditated, and spoken in soliloquy, yet he now felt almost unable to deliver it. A sense of the hollowness of his reasoning choked the words which should have flowed from his lips. He was too conscious of his own sophistry to be eloquent. Yet he struggled on through sentence after sentence, without observing the increasing astonishment of Mrs. Pendarrel, who wondered more and more to what he was coming. Like Fear, Michael recoiled from the sound of his own voice, when he had heard his concluding demand.
"Why, then, if this Mr. Randolph is fascinated by—your daughter—why should I be blind to the same attractions?"
By this time Esther had risen from her seat, and stood, mute with amazement. Had Michael been less excited, he could not have failed to notice the scorn and indignation in her face. But he had become absorbed in his subject, and proceeded hurriedly.
"And what obstacle is there? The world's prejudice? That I sweep aside. You can give me what station you please. Her engagement? You have good cause to break it. Why does Melcomb pursue her? To pay off the encumbrances on Tolpeden? No, no: to pay his own debts. Tolpeden will be mortgaged as now. Will she object? Not if she have any regard for Mr. Randolph. I can implicate him in the burning of Pendarrel. His life will be in danger. She will consent, in order to save him. What hinderance is there then?"
Mrs. Pendarrel approached the bell-rope, but before she could pull it, Michael boldly interposed. He had now regained his audacity.
"Hark! ma'am," he said. "Before you venture to scorn this offer, remember what you owe me. I am not to be paid with money. Well paid, did you say? No, ma'am. The triumph you have gained hangs upon my word. A breath from me will blow it to the winds. There is shame in store for you, ma'am, worse than any that has befallen Mr. Randolph. I have letters of yours, ma'am. You are in my power. I have named my terms. Beware, ma'am, of rejecting them."
"You do not seem to be aware, sir," Esther said, with cold and bitter sarcasm, "that the honour you would confer upon my family, it is not in my power to accept. My daughter fled from my house last night, and, as I believe, in company with the person to whom you allude."