Overpowered by shame and vexation, she could make no reply, but throwing herself as she was upon the bed, gave vent to her mortification in passionate sobs. I sat down by her side and let her weep unchecked, hoping that no more words would be needed to move her to contrition. After a while she grew calmer, and ceasing to sob, lay still, with her eyes shut. Occasionally her eyelids moved, and I knew that she was not asleep; but I would not be the first to break silence. About an hour passed thus, and then she opened her eyes, and raising herself on her elbow, and shaking back the fair hair that was hanging loose over her face, turned towards me. ‘Shall you tell Cousin?’ she asked in a faint voice.
‘I fear it will be my duty to do so,’ I replied; ‘though I shrink from the thought of the pain I shall inflict.’
Rose’s lip quivered, and tears again gathered in her eyes. ‘I know you must consider me very wicked,’ she said; ‘but indeed I am not so bad as you think. I am fully conscious how much I am indebted to Mr Aslatt, and I am grateful to him for the kindness he has always shewn me.’
‘How can you say so,’ I interrupted, ‘when you have deliberately planned what would cause him the bitterest sorrow?’
‘I know, I know!’ exclaimed Rose passionately. ‘Do you suppose I have ignored the sorrow my flight would cause my dear guardian, or that I would willingly appear so ungrateful? But I had to consider the happiness of another.’
‘What other can have stronger claims upon you than Mr Aslatt?’ I asked.
Rose coloured, and hesitated for an answer. ‘If I had a husband,’ she said in a low voice with downcast eyes, ‘he would have a higher claim upon me than any one else.’
‘Of course,’ I returned. ‘But you are not married, so I do not see what that has to do with it.’
‘This much,’ said Rose—‘that I have promised to marry Mr Hammond, and would have been married to-morrow if you had not stopped me; therefore he is more to me than any one else.’
‘I am very thankful that I did stop you,’ I said. ‘How could you expect, Rose, to find any happiness in a union so hastily and wilfully contracted? How could you think of fleeing by night from the home where you have been sheltered since your childhood, where your every wish has been gratified, and ample provision made for your happiness, by one whose noble love you are incapable of appreciating? You have been strangely deluded to think of trusting your life to one who could propose so base a scheme.’