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He turned to the Captain, and said, good-humoredly: "You see the compass was right." Captain Stanwick, answered, sharply: "There are more ways than one out of an English wood; you talk as if we were in one of your American forests." Mr. Varleigh seemed to be at a loss to understand his rudeness; there was a pause.
My childish pride urged me to assert myself in some way, after the passive position that I had been forced to occupy during the interview with Captain Stanwick. "No," I said, "it is not acting fairly toward Mr. Varleigh to break our engagement with him. Let us return to Nettlegrove by all means, but let us first call on Mr. Varleigh and take our leave.
The Captain was in one of his furious rages; Mr. Varleigh was firm and cool as usual. I caught my master in the act of lifting his cane threatening to strike Mr. Varleigh. He instantly dropped his hand, and turned on me in a fury at my intrusion. Taking no notice of this outbreak of temper, I gave him his friend's card, and went out.
On our way back my admiration was excited by a thick wood, beautifully situated on rising ground at a little distance from the high-road: "Oh, dear," I said, "how I should like to take a walk in that wood!" Idle, thoughtless words; but, oh, what remembrances crowd on me as I think of them now! Captain Stanwick and Mr. Varleigh at once dismounted and offered themselves as my escort.
After his first glance at her, he held his hand over his bloodshot eyes as if the sunlight hurt them. Without a word to prepare her for the disclosure, he confessed that he had killed Mr. Varleigh in a duel. "You are the cause of it," he said wildly. "It is for love of you. I have but one hope left to live for my hope in you. If you cast me off, my mind is made up.
Are we to behave rudely to a gentleman who has always treated us with the utmost consideration, because Captain Stanwick has tried to frighten us by cowardly threats? The commonest feeling of self-respect forbids it." My aunt protested against this outbreak of folly with perfect temper and good sense. I left her to choose between going with me to Mr. Varleigh, or letting me go to him by myself.
If I could have my way, I should like to twist her neck, though she is a lady, and a great heiress into the bargain. Before she came between them, my master and Mr. Varleigh were more like brothers than anything else. She set them at variance, and whether she meant to do it or not is all the same to me. I own I took a dislike to her when I first saw her.
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