“But you know the confusion of the times,--no courts of record, no mail facilities or means of communication.”
“Much exaggerated, I believe. But at all events we had the promissory notes and the registered mortgage and they had their cock-and-bull story.”
“Oh, I should like to give it back,--it would be so noble of you. I cannot bear that we should own what the Ducies claim is theirs, and I feel sure that if it is not theirs in law it is by every moral sanction. And for such a poor price!--to lose the whole estate for the little amount, comparatively, of the debt! It is too sharp a bargain for us. How much was the amount for which the executors bought it in?”
His face changed and he did not answer. It had not been a pleasant morning, and his imperious temper had been greatly strained. “I remember,” he said, satirically, losing his self-control at last, “that you once entertained a tender interest in one of these Messieurs Ducie. I must say that I did not expect it to last so long or to go so far,--to propose to denude me of my very own, one of the finest properties in Mississippi, and vest him with it!”
Her face flushed. Her eyes flashed. “You have broken your promise! You have broken your promise!” She looked so vehement, so affronted, so earnest, that her anger tamed him for a moment.
“It was inadvertent, dear. The circumstances forced it.”
“It was solemnly agreed between us that we would never mention this man, never remember that he existed. When I promised to marry you I told you frankly that I had been engaged to him, and had never a thought, a hope, a wish, but that I might marry him, until I met you.”
“I know, dear, I remember.” His warm hand closed down on her trembling fingers that she had laid on the railing of the guards as if for support.
“It is a matter of pride with me. I have no idea that I should feel so about it if it were any one else. But, of course, I know that he must reproach me for my duplicity, my inconstancy--”
“But you do not reproach yourself,” with a quick, searching glance.
“No, no, I was not inconstant. Only then I had not met you. But I have caused him unhappiness, and a sort of humiliation among his friends, who consider that I threw him over at the last minute, and I cannot bear to own anything that he accounts his. I don’t want _his_ land. I don’t want _his_ house. I wish you would deed it all back to him.”