and look a little uneasy. Sir Percival’s suggestion, politely as it was expressed, appeared to her, as it appeared to me, to point very delicately at the hesitation which her manner had betrayed a moment or two since.
“I hope, Sir Percival, you don’t do me the injustice to suppose that I distrust you,” she said quickly.
“Certainly not, Miss Halcombe. I make my proposal purely as an act of attention to YOU. Will you excuse my obstinacy if I still venture to press it?”
He walked to the writing-table
myself into believing it, and I must not now attempt to deceive others. The feeling began and ended in reckless, vindictive, hopeless hatred of the man who was to marry her.
“If we are to find out anything,” I said, speaking under the new influence which was now directing me, “we had better not let