If you attempt to go back into the town, I shall hold
you by force, and the consequences will be worse to you than to me.
Do as you please."
Again her eyes turned to the distant roof of Peartree Cottage. She,
too, had estimated her strength and his She knew by instinct what
his face meant--the swollen, trembling lips, the hot eyes; and
understood that he was capable of any baseness. To attempt to reach
her home would he an abandonment of all hope, the ruin of Denzil. A
means of escape from worst extremity, undiscoverable by her whirling
brain, might suggest itself to such a mind as Mrs. Wade's. If only
she could communicate with the cottage!
"Then I shall go to my friend here," she said, pointing.
He hesitated.
"Who is she?"
"A lady who lives quite alone."
"What's the good of your going there?"
She had recourse to artifice, and acted weakness much better than he
had simulated strength.
"I _must_ have some one's advice! I must know how others regard your
claim."
He saw no possibility of restraining her, and it might befall that
this lady, intentionally or not, would use her influence on his
side. Those last words signified a doubt in Lilian's mind. Was it
not pretty certain that any respectable woman, on learning how
matters stood, must exclaim against that pretended marriage?
Northway's experience lay solely among the representatives of
English morality, and the frankly vicious; he could hardly imagine a
"lady" whose view of the point at issue would admit pleas on
Lilian's behalf.
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