Here was another of the marked peculiarities in her character disclosing
itself to me without reserve. Here was her sensitive horror of the bare
contact with anything mean, blinding her to every consideration of what
she owed to herself, hurrying her into a false position which might
compromise her in the estimation of all her friends! Up to this time,
I had been a little diffident about the propriety of the advice I had
given to her. But, after what she had just said, I had no sort of doubt
that it was the best advice that could have been offered; and I felt no
sort of hesitation in pressing it on her again.
She only shook her head, and repeated her objection in other words.
"He has been intimate enough with me to ask me to be his wife. He has
stood high enough in my estimation to obtain my consent. I can't tell
him to his face that he is the most contemptible of living creatures,
after that!"
"But, my dear Miss Rachel," I remonstrated, "it's equally impossible for
you to tell him that you withdraw from your engagement without giving
some reason for it."
"I shall say that I have thought it over, and that I am satisfied it
will be best for both of us if we part.
"No more than that?"
"No more."
"Have you thought of what he may say, on his side?"
"He may say what he pleases."
It was impossible not to admire her delicacy and her resolution, and it
was equally impossible not to feel that she was putting herself in the
wrong. I entreated her to consider her own position I reminded her that
she would be exposing herself to the most odious misconstruction of her
motives. "You can't brave public opinion," I said, "at the command of
private feeling."
"I can," she answered. "I have done it already."
"What do you mean?"
"You have forgotten the Moonstone, Mr. Bruff. Have I not braved public
opinion, THERE, with my own private reasons for it?"
Her answer silenced me for the moment. It set me trying to trace the
explanation of her conduct, at the time of the loss of the Moonstone,
out of the strange avowal which had just escaped her. I might perhaps
have done it when I was younger. I certainly couldn't do it now.
I tried a last remonstrance before we returned to the house. She was
just as immovable as ever. My mind was in a strange conflict of feelings
about her when I left her that day. She was obstinate; she was wrong.
She was interesting; she was admirable; she was deeply to be pitied. I
made her promise to write to me the moment she had any news to send.
And I went back to my business in London, with a mind exceedingly ill at
ease.