If Mr. Hammond could persuade young Todd to marry Connie immediately, this month, if Connie could be bundled away again to the isolated uplands of Thraile, then the tennis club need never know; then Lady Grainger would still smile graciously upon the Hammonds; then the Bennet relations, and the flouted malice of the Marshington Chapel folk need never jeer at Rachel Bennet, who against reason, against prudence, almost against decency, had married Old Dick Hammond's son.
Why wouldn't he come? Why wouldn't he come? Had the trap broken down? Had he missed the connection at Hardrascliffe? Supposing—supposing he had failed? Supposing? You never knew with Father. He had assurance and courage and cleverness, but still, still—
A door clicked again. Both sat up stiffly, listening. Steps descended the stairs. The door opened, and Connie entered the room.
"I can't stand it. That room upstairs gives me the horrors. I can't stand being alone."
She sank into her father's big arm-chair, exhausted by the strain of the last twenty-four hours. Muriel looked at her, thinking that this passion-torn creature was a stranger, queer and terrible, belonging only to the nightmare year since last night when that dark figure had crept along the drive. Her sister Connie had been gay and reckless, had loved flamboyant colours, and the harsh merriment of rag-time tunes. Muriel remembered her at Kingsport dances, flushed and exultant, with blue ribbon in her bright wild hair.
"I won't do it." Connie's voice, flat and dead, came from between the hands covering her bowed face. "I won't do it. I hate him. I hate Ben Todd." She lifted her head with sudden fierce energy. "Mother, let me go away. By myself. I'll manage. I'll do anything. I'll work my fingers to the bone. I'll never come near here again. Let Father give me some money. I can't go through with it."
Mrs. Hammond's trembling fingers set down the foolish white cotton, the little looped edge of her work.
"Connie," she said quietly, "you know that's impossible. We—your father and I—are doing the best, the only thing we can for you. You must help us, we——"
"But if he can't——" In an urgency of appeal Connie lifted her eyes. "You don't know Mrs. Todd. She'll lie and lie. They'll say—they'll say I encouraged him. He—Ben— does what she says. He's always done what she's said."
Mrs. Hammond opened her eyes and stared unseeing across the room to her elder daughter. Then she spoke softly, almost as though entranced: