'Now I shall run away with her,' he repeated.
'She won't go with you,' my lady cried with scorn.
'I sha'n't ask her,' he answered. 'When there is no choice she will come
to it. I tell you I shall carry her off. And if I am taken and hanged
for it, I'll be hanged at Papworth--before your window.' 'You poor simpleton!' she said. 'Go home to your father.' 'All right, my lady,' he answered, without lifting his eyes from the
carpet. 'Now you know. It will be your doing. I shall force her off, and
if I am taken and hanged I will be hanged at Papworth. You took fine
pains last night, but I'll take pains to-day. If I don't have her I
shall never have a wife. But I will have her.' 'Fools cry for the moon,' said my lady. 'Any way, get out of my room.
You are a fine talker, but I warrant you will take care of your neck.' 'I shall carry her off and marry her,' he repeated, his chin sunk on his
breast, his hand rattling the money in his pocket.
'It is a distance to Gretna,' she answered. 'You'll be nearer it outside
my door, my lad. So be stepping, will you? And if you take my advice,
you will go to my lord.' 'All right; you know,' he said sullenly. 'For that sneak there, if he
comes in my way, I'll break every bone in his body. Good-day, my lady.
When I see you again I will have Miss with me.' 'Like enough; but not Madam,' she retorted. 'You are not such a fool as
that comes to. And there is the Act besides!' That was her parting shot; for all the feeling she had shown, from the
opening to the close of the interview, she might have been his worst
enemy. Yet after a fashion, and as a part of herself, she did love him;
which was proved by her first words after the door had closed upon him.
'Lord!' she said uneasily. 'I hope he will play no Ferrers tricks, and
disgrace us all. He is a black desperate fellow, is Dunborough, when he
is roused.' The crestfallen tutor could not in a moment recover himself; but he
managed to say that he did not think Mr. Dunborough suspected Sir
George; and that even if he did, the men had fought once, in which case
there was less risk of a second encounter.
'You don't know him,' my lady answered, 'if you say that. But it is not
that I mean. He'll do some wild thing about carrying her off. From a boy
he would have his toy. I've whipped him till the blood ran, and he's
gone to it.' 'But without her consent,' said Mr. Thomasson, 'it would not be
possible.' 'I mistrust him,' the viscountess answered. 'So do you go and find this
baggage, and drop a word to her--to go in company you understand. Lord!
he might marry her that way yet. For once away she would have to marry
him--ay, and he to marry her to save his neck. And fine fools we
should look.' 'It's--it's a most surprising, wonderful thing she did not take him,'
said the tutor thoughtfully.