"
"You are very good," she said, "but it cannot be. Get rid of me if you
like and marry somebody else. I am ready to take the penalty of what I
have done."
"Once more, Belle, I beg you to consider. Do you know what kind of man
this is for whom you are giving up your life? Not only has he deserted
you, but do you know how he has got hold of Ida de la Molle? He has,
as I know well, /bought/ her. I tell you he has bought her as much as
though he had gone into the open market and paid down a price for her.
The other day Cossey and Son were going to foreclose upon the Honham
estates, which would have ruined the old gentleman. Well, what did
your young man do? He went to the girl--who hates him, by the way, and
is in love with Colonel Quaritch--and said to her, 'If you will
promise to marry me when I ask you, I will find the thirty thousand
pounds and take up the mortgages.' And on those terms she agreed to
marry him. And now he has got rid of you and he claims her promise.
There is the history. I wonder that your pride will bear such a thing.
By heaven, I would kill the man."
She looked up at him curiously. "Would you?" she said. "It is not a
bad idea. I dare say it is all true. He is worthless. Why does one
fall in love with worthless people? Well, there is an end of it; or a
beginning of the end.
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