“Dead or alive, as you say, I bar your way,” I said tartly.
“Pooh, man! I give you six weeks of violent grief, six months of tender melancholy.”
“You do not know the Scotch. She will die a maid,” I answered.
“Not she! A live lover is more present than a dead one. Has she sworn pretty vows to you, Montagu? ‘At lovers’ perjuries, they say, love laughs.’ Is there nothing to be said for me? Will her heart not always whisper that I deserve gratitude and love, that I perilled my life for her, saved the lives of her brother and her lover, neither of them friends of mine, again reprieved her lover’s life, stood friend to her through all her trouble? You know a woman’s way—to make much of nothing.”
“Forgive, if I prod a lagging memory, Miss Westerleigh?”
Long he laughed and merrily.
“Eloped for Gretna Green with Tony Creagh last night, and I, poor forsaken swain, faith! I do not pursue.”
You may be sure that dashed me. I felt as a trapped fox with the dogs closing in. The future loomed up clear before me, Aileen hand in hand with Volney scattering flowers on my grave in sentimental mood. The futility of my obstinacy made me bitter.
“Come, Montagu! Listen to reason,” urged the tempter. “You get in my way, but I don’t want to let you be sponged out. The devil of it is that if I get you a pardon—and I’m not sure that I can get it—you’ll marry the girl. I might have you shipped to the Barbadoes as a slave with some of the others, but to be frank I had rather see you hanged than give you so scurvy an end. Forswear what is already lost and make an end of it.”
I turned away blackly. “You have my answer. Sir Robert, you have played your last card. Now let me die in peace.”