Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/355

1885.] fact he was perfectly clear that in this particular instance she did not. The courage which it takes to fly – not such a very inconsiderable portion either, if one thinks of it – he certainly possessed, for he had already wound himself up to it; but the courage that it takes to stay and face out the worst – that, he tremblingly owned to himself, that he was far, very far, from being able to lay his hands on. It was clear to him – clear as the sun which was then lighting up the top of the Dogana – that there was only one way of getting out of this dilemma in which he found himself, and that one was flight. It might not be heroic, it might not be particularly straightforward, or possibly, even, as his sister said, gentlemanlike, but it was the only way. Any other attempt would be a mere rattling and shaking of the captive's chains; very uncomfortable to himself, and not productive of the slightest result in the end. As he himself said, he knew this woman whom he had engaged himself to marry.

Upon the other hand there was now this other woman whom he also knew his sister, his friend; the lifelong sharer of all his projects and intentions, and keeper to some extent of his conscience – a sufficiently formidable figure, standing right in the very path of his retreat. If he had only not had the ill luck to come upon her at so preposterously an early hour of the morning! he thought irritably, there would have been plenty of time to be off and away before she suspected anything; and once gone – the thing definitely done – though she might have been very indignant, and might have said several very unpleasant things about it when they next met, there was also no question in his own mind but what she would have forgiven him in the long-run. Now, however, that she knew of his intention beforehand, the whole aspect of affairs was changed, and changed unquestionably for the worse. A sense of that unreasonable and quite unwarrantable chanciness, which has so often interfered with the destiny of men and of nations, was strong upon the poor Colonel's mind at that moment. What could have induced Frances to go prowling about the house at such an hour of the morning, instead of remaining in her bed like a reasonable woman? he thought, with natural indignation.

"It would take a deuce of a lot of money to compensate her!" he said at last, sullenly.

"Yes; enough to make up a regular income, wouldn't it? Listen, Hal, and don't interrupt me, dear, for a moment; I have been thinking it all over. Your money, being in land, would be out of the question – you couldn't touch it; whereas there is that thirty thousand pounds of mine, simply invested in the Funds, and we could get at it almost at any moment. This is what I propose. Offer her half, and see what she says to it."

"Half! Fifteen thousand pounds? Are you crazy, Fan? Offer her half your fortune?"

"Yes; what then? I should still have the other half. You said yourself just now that it would take a lot of money to compensate her, and of course it would."

"I never said that I was going to take half your money – to make a beggar of you! Did I?"

"Nonsense, Hal. It is you now that are not talking reason. Who ever heard of a single woman with seven or eight hundred a-year being a beggar?"

"You may take your oath I'll never touch a penny of yours for any such purpose, even if it would do any good, which it wouldn't; so put that out of your mind once