n a
spirit above a woman's. Or did she know something that he did not know?
Something that caused this sudden collapse. The thought increased his
uneasiness; the coward dreads everything, and his nerves were shaken.
'Pish! pish!' he said pettishly. 'You should not give way like that! You
should not, you must not give way!'

'And why not?' she cried, arresting her sobs. There was a ring of
expectation in her voice, a hoping against hope. He fancied that she had
lowered her hands and was peering at him.

'Because we--we may yet contrive something' he answered lamely. 'We--we
may be rescued. Indeed--I am sure we shall be rescued,' he continued,
fighting his fears as well as hers.

'And what if we are?' she cried with a passion that took him aback.
'What if we are? What better am I if we are rescued? Oh, I would have
done anything for him! I would have died for him!' she continued wildly.
'And he has done this for me. I would have given him all, all freely,
for no return if he would have it so; and this is his requital! This is
the way he has gone to get it. Oh, vile! vile!'

Mr. Thomasson started. Metaphorically, he was no longer in the dark. She
fancied that Sir George, Sir George whom she loved, was the contriver of
this villainy. She thought that Sir George--Sir George, her cousin--was
the abductor; that she was being carried off, not for her own sake, but
as an obstacle to be removed from his path. The conception took the
tutor's breath away; he was even staggered for the moment, it agreed as
well with one part of the facts. And when an instant later his own
certain information came to his aid and showed him its unreality, and he
would have blurted out the truth--he hesitated. The words were on the
tip of his tongue, the sentence was arranged, but he hesitated.

Why? Simply because he was Mr. Thomasson, and it was not in his nature
to do the thing that lay before him until he had considered whether it
might not profit him to do something else. In this case the bare
statement that Mr. Dunborough, and not Sir George, was the author of the
outrage, would go for little with her. If he proceeded to his reasons he
might convince her; but he would also fix himself with a fore-knowledge
of the danger--a fore-knowledge which he had not imparted to her, and
which must sensibly detract from the merit of the service he had already
and undoubtedly performed.

This was a risk; and there was a farther consideration. Why give Mr