Standing in the window, her face turned from him, she repeated the words blankly. "He will never trouble me again? ... I suppose not. Oh, how I wish that he had been caught in his own net! If I had been a different girl, tall and beautiful and fascinating! If I could have made him wild for me, and then—then found out this, so that I could punish him, make him suffer, as I am suffering now!"
This outburst was beyond the scope of the old cleric, who sat peering with weak eyes upon a passion that passed him by.
"Is—is Mr. Guyse still in Bramforth?" she asked at length.
"No. I understand that he made his visit to me so early because he had to catch a train. He has gone back to Guysewyke."
Over! It was indeed over. In all her thoughts of Ninian she had not suspected him of playing the hypocrite with her. Now she saw it all, in the fierce light of her grandfather’s bald words. He had played a part with her—pretended he liked her, pretended he was eager for her society.... As time went on, he must have seen that what was all jest to him was earnest to her. He had begun to feel some stirring of remorse. "I wish to God I had never seen you! ... I’m damned if I marry the child!"
How easy of interpretation now were those words which had been so puzzling!
It seemed as if Providence had intervened to save her, as if some power greater than herself had nerved her to that midnight flight, and spared her the humiliation of hearing from the lips of the man she loved the cruel fact that he had meant to marry her for her money.
And Wilfrid, handsome, debonair Wilfrid, had been privy to all this. He, who knew her father well, had kept silence on that head. Together he and Ninian had planned to net a fortune. How very nearly they had succeeded!
She summoned up a picture of Wolf, standing in the damp, tree-shaded road, coaxing her so gently back to the car, luring her so plausibly to return to her prison.
He had not succeeded. Ah, God be praised for that! She was here, at Bramforth, bruised, half killed, but safe! Oddly enough she had at the moment a glimpse into the soul of Madam—the other heiress who had been lured into a loveless marriage by a former Ninian Guyse! She pictured herself, dull, faded, embittered, listless, while the man who did not love her passed lightly on his way.