These reflections are all very well. But Marwood will come to the aid of your old prejudices, and I fear, I fear----
That which will never happen! You shall see her go back this very evening to London. And as I have confessed my most secret--folly we will call it for the present--I must not conceal from you either, that I have put Marwood into such a fright that she will obey the slightest hint from me.
Look! I snatched this murderous steel from her hand (_showing the dagger which he had taken from_ Marwood) when in a fearful rage she was on the point of stabbing me to the heart with it. Will you believe now, that I offered her a stout resistance? At first she well nigh succeeded in throwing her noose around my neck again. The traitoress!--She has Arabella with her.
I have not yet been able to fathom by what cunning she got the child back into her hands again. Enough, the result did not fall out as she no doubt had expected.
Allow me to rejoice at your firmness, and to consider your reformation half assured. Yet,--as you wish me to know all--what business had she here under the name of Lady Solmes?
She wanted of all things to see her rival. I granted her wish partly from kindness, partly from rashness, partly from the desire to humiliate her by the sight of the best of her sex. You shake your head, Norton?
Risked? I did not risk anything more, after all, than what I should have had to risk if I had refused her. She would have tried to obtain admittance as Marwood; and the worst that can be expected from her incognito visit is not worse than that.
Thank Heaven that it went off so quietly.
It is not quite over yet, Norton. A slight indisposition came over her and compelled her to go away without taking leave. She wants to come again. Let her do so! The wasp which has lost its sting (_pointing to the dagger_) can do nothing worse than buzz. But buzzing too shall cost her dear, if she grows too troublesome with it. Do I not hear somebody coming? Leave me if it should be she. It is she. Go! (_Exit_ Norton.)
No doubt you are little pleased to see me again.
I am very pleased, Marwood, to see that your indisposition has had no further consequences. You are better, I hope?
You have not done well, then, to trouble to come here again.