ceased, and sat silent; breakfast had no charms for her that morning.
Presently there was a knock at the door, and Mr. Plowden entered with a smile of forced gaiety on his face.
"How do you do, Florence?" he said; "how do you do, dear Eva? You see I have come to see you early this morning. I want a little refreshment to enable me to get though my day's duty. The early suitor has come to pick up the worm of his affections," and he laughed at his joke.
Florence shuddered at the simile, and thought to herself that there was a fair chance of the affectionate worm disagreeing with the early suitor.
Eva said nothing. She sat quite still and pale.
"Why, what is the matter with you both? Have you seen a ghost?"
"Not exactly; but I think that Eva has received a message from the dead," said Florence, with a nervous laugh.
Eva rose. "I think, Mr. Plowden," she said, "that I had better be frank with you at once. I ask you to listen to me for a few moments."
"Am I not always at your service, dear Eva?"
"I wish," began Eva, and broke down--"I wish," she went on again, "to appeal to your generosity and to your feelings as a gentleman."
Florence smiled.
Mr. Plowden bowed with mock humility and smiled too--a very ugly smile.
"You are aware that, before I became engaged to you, I had had a previous affair."
"With the boy who committed a murder," put in Mr. Plowden.
"With a gentleman who had the misfortune to kill a man in a duel," explained Eva.
"The Church and the law call it murder."
"Excuse me, Mr. Plowden, we are dealing neither with the Church nor the law; we are dealing with the thing as it is called among gentlemen and ladies."
"Go on," said Mr. Plowden.
"Well, misunderstandings, which I need not now enter into, arose with reference to that affair, though, as I told you, I loved the man. To-day I have heard from him, and his letter puts everything straight in my mind, and I see how wrong and unjust has been my behaviour to him, and I know that I love him more than ever."
"Curse the fellow's impudence!" said the clergyman, furiously; "if he were here I would give him a bit of my mind!"
Eva's spirit rose, and she turned on him with flashing eyes, looking like a queen in her imperial beauty.
"If he were here, Mr. Plowden, you would not dare to look him in the face. Men like you only take advantage of the absent."
The clergyman ground his teeth. He felt his furious temper rising and did not dare to answer, though he was a bold man, in face of a woman. He feared lest it should get beyond him; but beneath his breath he muttered, "You shall pay for that, my lady!"
"Under these circumstances," went on Eva, "I appeal to you as a gentleman to release me from an engagement into which, as you know, I have been drawn more by force of circumstances than by my own wish. Surely it is not necessary for me to say any more."
Mr. Plowden rose and came and stood quite close to her, so that his face was within a few inches of her eyes.
"Eva," he said, "I am not going to be trifled with like this. You have promised to marry me, and I shall keep you to your promise. You laid yourself out to win my affection, the affection of an honest man."
Again Florence smiled, and Eva made a faint motion of dissent.
"Yes, but you did, you encouraged me. It is very well for you to deny it now, when it suits your purpose, but you did, and you know it, and your sister there knows it."
Florence bowed her head in assent.
"And now you wish, in order to gratify an unlawful passion for a shedder of blood--you wish to throw me over, to trample upon my holiest feelings, and to rob me of the prize which I have won. No, Eva, I will not release you."
"Surely, surely, Mr. Plowden," said Eva, faintly, for she was a gentle creature, and the man's violence overwhelmed her, "you will not force me into a marriage which I tell you is repugnant to me? I appeal to your generosity to release me. You can never oblige me to marry you when I tell you that I do not love you, and that my whole heart is given to another man."
Mr. Plowden saw that his violence was doing its work, and determined to follow it up. He raised his voice till it was almost a shout.
"Yes," he said, "I will; I will not submit to such wickedness. Love! that will come. I am quite willing to take my chance of it. No, I tell you fairly that I will not let you off; and if you try to avoid fulfilling your engagement to me I will do more: I will proclaim you all over the country as a jilt; I will bring an action for breach of promise of marriage against you--perhaps you did not know that men can do that as well as women--and cover your name with disgrace! Look, I have your written promise of marriage"; and he produced her letter.
Eva turned to her sister.
"Florence," she said, "cannot you say a word to help me? I am overwhelmed."
"I wish I could, Eva dear," answered her sister, kindly; "but how can I? What Mr. Plowden says is just and right. You are engaged to him, and are in honour bound to marry him. O, Eva, do not bring trouble and disgrace upon us all by your obstinacy! You owe something to your name as well as to yourself, and something to me too. I am sure that Mr. Plowden will be willing to forget all about this if you will undertake never to allude to it again."
"O yes, certainly, Miss Florence. I am not revengeful; I only want my rights."
Eva looked faintly from one to the other; her head sank, and great black rings painted themselves beneath her eyes. The lily was broken at last.
"You are very cruel," she said, slowly; "but I suppose it must be as you wish. Pray God I may die first, that is all!" and she put her hands to her head and stumbled from the room, leaving the two conspirators facing each other.
"Come, we got over that capitally," said Mr. Plowden, rubbing his hands. "There is nothing like taking the high hand with a woman. Ladies must sometimes be taught that gentlemen have rights as well as themselves."
Florence turned on him with bitter scorn.
"/Gentlemen!/ Mr. Plowden, why is the word so often on your lips? Surely, after the part you have just played, you do not presume to rank yourself among /gentlemen?/ Listen! it suits my purposes that you should marry Eva, and you shall marry her; but I will not stoop to play the hypocrite with a man like you. You talk of yourself as a gentleman, and do not scruple to force an innocent girl into a wicked marriage, and to crush her spirit with your cunning cruelty. A /gentleman/, forsooth!--a satyr, a devil in disguise!"
"I am only asserting my rights," he said furiously, "and whatever I have done, you have done more."
"Do not try your violence on me, Mr. Plowden; it will not do. I am not made of the same stuff as your victim. Lower your voice, or leave the house and do not enter it again."
Mr. Plowden's heavy under-jaw fell a little; he was terribly
