'
'It is not his fault: he did not tempt me, papa! I came.'
'If you wished the marriage broken off, why didn't you say so
plainly? If you never intended to marry, why could you not leave
her alone? Upon my soul, it grates me to the heart to be obliged
to think so ill of a man I thought my friend!'
Knight, soul-sick and weary of his life, did not arouse himself to
utter a word in reply. How should he defend himself when his
defence was the accusation of Elfride? On that account he felt a
miserable satisfaction in letting her father go on thinking and
speaking wrongfully. It was a faint ray of pleasure straying into
the great gloominess of his brain to think that the vicar might
never know but that he, as her lover, tempted her away, which
seemed to be the form Mr. Swancourt's misapprehension had taken.
'Now, are you coming?' said Mr. Swancourt to her again. He took
her unresisting hand, drew it within his arm, and led her down the
stairs. Knight's eyes followed her, the last moment begetting in
him a frantic hope that she would turn her head. She passed on,
and never looked back.
He heard the door open--close again. The wheels of a cab grazed
the kerbstone, a murmured direction followed. The door was
slammed together, the wheels moved, and they rolled away.
From that hour of her reappearance a dreadful conflict raged
within the breast of Henry Knight. His instinct, emotion,
affectiveness--or whatever it may be called--urged him to stand
forward, seize upon Elfride, and be her cherisher and protector
through life.
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