Roberts: ‘I didn’t think—I hadn’t time to think.’
Mrs. Roberts: ‘No matter. I’m glad you have all the glory of it. I don’t believe you half realise what you’ve been through now. And perhaps this was the robbers’ first attempt, and it will be a lesson to them. Oh yes! I’m glad you let them escape, Edward. They may have families. If every one behaved as you’ve done, there would soon be an end of garotting. But, oh! I can’t bear to think of the danger you’ve run. And I want you to promise me never, never to undertake such a thing again!’
Roberts: ‘Well, I don’t know—’
Mrs. Roberts: ‘Yes, yes; you must! Suppose you had got killed in that awful struggle with those reckless wretches tugging to get away from you! Think of the children! Why, you might have burst a blood-vessel! Will you promise, Edward? Promise this instant, on your bended knees, just as if you were in a court of justice!’ Mrs. Roberts’s excitement mounts, and she flings herself at her husband’s feet, and pulls his face down to hers with the arm she has thrown about his neck. ‘Will you promise?’
II
MRS. CRASHAW; MR. AND MRS. ROBERTS
Mrs. Crashaw, entering unobserved: ‘Promise you what, Agnes? The man doesn’t smoke now. What more can you ask?’ She starts back from the spectacle of Roberts’s disordered dress. ‘Why, what’s happened to you, Edward?’
Mrs. Roberts, springing to her feet: ‘Oh, you may well ask that, Aunt Mary! Happened? You ought to fall down and worship him! And you will when you know what he’s been through. He’s been robbed!’
Mrs. Crashaw: ‘Robbed? What nonsense! Who robbed him? Where was he robbed?’
Mrs. Roberts: ‘He was attacked by two garotters—’
Roberts: ‘No, no—’