"I don't care. I will speak, and if master gets to know, so much the
better."
"Will you hold your silly tongue?"
"No, I won't. I've held it too long. It's disgraceful, that's what it
is, and I'll tell Mr Clive of your goings-on with his sweetheart."
"Look here, Lyddy, do you want me to poison you, or take you out
somewhere and push you into a river?"
"Yes," cried the girl addressed, passionately. "I wish you would, and
then there'd be an end of the misery and wretchedness. And as for that
Miss Janet Praed--"
"Hold your tongue, you silly, jealous little fool!"
"Oh yes, I know I'm a fool--fool to believe all your wicked lies. And
so would you be jealous. I saw it all last time she was here--a slut
engaged to be married to your brother, and all the time making eyes at
you, while you are carrying on with her shamefully, and before me, too.
It's cruel and disgraceful. I may be only a servant, but I've got my
feelings the same as other people, and I'd die sooner than behave as she
did, and you did, and--and--I wish I was dead, I do--that I do."
"Will you be quiet, you silly little goose. Do you want everybody in
the house to know of our flirtation?"
"Flirtation!" cried the girl, wiping her streaming eyes. "You regularly
proposed and asked me to be your wife."
"Why, of course. Haven't I promised that I would marry you some day?"
"Yes--some day," said the girl bitterly; "but some day never comes. Oh,
Jessop, dear Jessop! you made me love you so, and you're breaking my
heart, going on as you do with that Miss Praed."
She threw her arms about his neck, and clung to him till he roughly
forced her to quit her hold.
"Are you mad?" he said angrily.
"Yes, very nearly," cried the girl, with her pretty, fair, weak face
lighted up with rage. "You've made me so. I'll tell Mr Clive as soon
as he comes back from Derbyshire--see if I don't!"
"You'd better," said Jessop grimly. "You dare say a word to a soul, and
I'll never put a ring on your finger, my lady--there!"
"Yes, you will--you shall!" cried the girl passionately. "You promised
me, and the law shall make you!"
"Will you be quiet? You'll have my father hear you directly."
"And a good job too."
"Oh, you think so, do you?"
"Yes, I do. Master's a dear, good gentleman, and always been nice and
kind. I'll tell him--that I will!"
"Not you. There, wipe those pretty little blue eyes, and don't make
your dear little puggy nose red, nor your cheeks neither. I don't know,
though," whispered Jessop, passing his arm round the girl and drawing
her to him; "it makes you look very sweet and attractive. I say, Lyddy,
dear, you are really a beautiful girl, you know."
"Do adone, Jessop," she whispered, softening directly, and yielding
herself to his touch.
"I couldn't help loving you, darling, and I love you more and more every
day, though you will lead me such a life with your jealousy. I never
find fault with you when I see you smiling at Clive."
"But it is not as I do at you, dear. Mr Clive was always quite the
gentleman to me, and it hurts me to see you trying so hard to get Miss
Janet away from him."
"There you go again, little silly. Isn't she going to be my
sister-in-law?"
"It didn't look like it."
"Pish! What do you know about such things? In society we are obliged
to be a bit polite, and so on."
"Oh, are we? I know; and if I told Mr Clive, he'd think as I do. I
won't have you make love to her before my very eyes--there!"
"Why, what an unreasonable little pet it is!" he cried, disarming the
girl's resentment with a few caresses.
"And the sooner master knows you are engaged to me the better," she
said, with a sob.
"And then you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that my father has
quarrelled with me, and altered his will, so that everything goes to my
brother. He may marry you then, for I couldn't. I shouldn't have a
penny to help myself. Oh yes; go and tell. I believe you want to get
hold of him now."
The girl gave him a piteous look, and tried to catch his hand, but he
avoided her touch, and laughed sneeringly.
"I don't want to be hard and bitter," he said, "but I'm not blind."
She looked up at him reproachfully.
"You don't mean what you are saying," she whispered sadly, "so I shan't
fret about that."
"You don't believe me," he said, in a low voice, as he fixed the girl
with his eyes, glorying in the knowledge that he had thoroughly subdued
her, and that she was his to mould exactly as he willed, to obey him
like a slave. "Then you may believe this, that I have told you before.
All that has passed between us is our secret, and if you betray it and
ruin my prospects, and make me a beggar, you may go and drown yourself
as you threatened, for aught I care, for you will have wilfully cut
everything between us asunder. Now we understand each other, and you
had better go before any one comes." The girl stood gazing at him
piteously now, with every trace of anger gone out of her eyes, and her
tones, when she spoke, were those of appeal.
"But, Jessop, dear."
"Be quiet, will you," he said angrily.
"Don't speak to me like that, dear," she whispered. "Only tell me you
don't care for Miss Praed."
"I won't answer such a baby's stupid questions. You know I only care
for you."
There was a sob, but at the same moment a look of hope to lighten a good
deal of despair.
"You are not angry with me, Jessop, dear?"
"Yes, I am, very."
"But you will forgive me, love?"
"Anything, if you'll only be the dear, good, sensible little woman you
used to be."
"I will, dear--always," she whispered.
"And fight for me, so that I may not lose."
"Yes, dear, of course."
"Can I trust you, Lyddy?"
"Yes, dear."
"Then, whatever happens, you will, for my sake, hold your tongue till I
tell you to speak?"
"Yes, if I die for it," she said earnestly.
"I thought you would be sensible," he said, nodding at her. "Come,
that's my pretty, wise little woman. Now go about your business, and
wait for the bright days to come, when I shall be free to do as I like."
"Yes, Jessop," she whispered, and after a sharp glance at the door she
bent forward and kissed him quickly. "But there isn't anything between
you and Miss Janet?"
"Of course not," he cried. "As if there could be while you live."
She nodded to him smiling, laid her finger on her lips to show that they
were sealed, and then hurried out of the room.
"Poor little fool!" said Jessop Reed to himself, as soon as he was
alone; "you are getting rather in the way."