"Four years is a long time to be away, and after you left I was so
lonely, I had no comrade, no Little Brother in my summer vacations. And
you were far away, and Colonel Goff--you know how queerly he has always
persisted in wanting to marry me some day--not quite as bad as Aunt
Lucretia's way, but almost as bad--because, well, I think for no other
reason than because I ride well--" she was speaking brokenly. "Aunt
Lucretia wants me to marry you because I've got a good pedigree, and
Colonel Goff wants me to marry him because I ride well, but I want to
marry someone because I love him. You know how grandfather is about
Colonel Goff, Jack? Oh, I can't tell it all, but he has made it so
unpleasant for me since you left, worrying me about--that I should marry
Colonel Goff--that I had nothing, and how great a man Colonel Goff
was--and--oh, he has seemed to become childish of late, so irritable and
strange, and so he has almost driven me away from home or into marrying
Colonel Goff; and you were far away, Jack. And so when Colonel
Goff--well, he was as persistent as grandfather, and so kind always and
good to me--Jack, you see how I was placed between them--"
"Well?" I said bitterly, "go on."
"And so when Colonel Goff asked me, I--"
The great trees above me seemed to reel, and my heart to stop, and then
thump fiercely in my throat.
"Eloise, please don't," I begged. "Do you--you don't love that man!"
"Of course not," she answered coolly, and very quietly, "but--and this
is my secret, Jack. Promise me--it isn't known yet, but it will be
before long. You know since he came home from the war with grandfather
and lived here he has been at outs with his people in England. You know
how he had to leave them. Well, it seems that all of his brothers over
there have died but one, and that Colonel Goff is next heir, and that he
has received a letter from the physician asking him to come and see his
brother before he dies, that he wants to arrange about the estates, for
they are large, and the brother is the Earl of Carfax."