"He refused to plead; but I am not so sure that he could not have pleaded successfully if he had chosen to do it. My petition was an outrage to him."
"Do not think it. A woman is not driven to take such a step without sufficient grounds."
"That is what the judge said; but--ah me!--I do not know."
"What has called up these morbid fancies in your mind, Rose? You were cheerful an hour ago."
"He--has spoken to me. When you were gone he came to me--and things seem different now. I am not so sure that I was right, as I used to be."
"The sneaking villain! Who is he? Where is he? To come molesting the woman he has wronged, so soon as my back was turned! Kicking is too good for such a hound. Where is he?"
"You must not ask. What would people say of me, if you and he were to meet?... But I am upset; my head is splitting. I do not know what I am saying, or what I do. I will go back to the village inn and lie down."
"We can drive back to Clam Beach. No one will miss us. Come."
"I want to be alone, and think. Do not come with me. Yonder is Lettice Deane; bring me to her, and then let me leave you."
Lettice was following her own amusement in her own way. She was holding a kind of auction of her smiles as she walked upon the sands between Mr Sefton and Peter Wilkie, who vied with each other to engross her attention, flashing speeches across her, to her infinite diversion, in their efforts to extinguish one another. It was amusing, but she cared nothing for either, and was mischievously ready to disgust them both alike, by yielding to Rose's petition for her company back to the village.
"Is your head _very_ bad, Rose, dear?" she asked, full of sympathy, as soon as they were alone. "It must be, to take you away from him so soon after his present. Or is it a sort of necessary discipline?--in case of his growing too confident on the head of it? Let me see it. Everybody knows that the express man was sent after you here. What! you have not put it on yet? I declare, I think you are rigorous. You owed him the satisfaction of seeing you wear it, I think, seeing how much it cost."
"I have not got it. I could not accept it to-day. I have been trying to have an explanation and tell him everything. He--the other--dropped upon me suddenly when I was alone and not expecting him, and we talked--and, oh Lettice! I am in a maze. What am I to do? It seems to be I won't and I will with me, all the time. I can't do both, and I won't do either. I am distracted, Lettice. I must go to bed and try to think."