The Ladies Lindores · Chapter 43 (2/2)

“What does it mean?” she cried, her soft face growing stern, her nostrils dilating. “Either what you said is false, or this is false; and anyhow, you, you are false, Lord Rintoul! Oh, cannot you tell me what it means? Is it that you are not brave enough to stand up by yourself⁠—to say, It was I⁠—”

“For God’s sake, Nora! I was ready, quite ready to do it, though it would have been ruin to me. I had made up my mind. But what could I do when this man stood up before me and said⁠—He told the whole story almost exactly as⁠—as it happened. I was stupefied; but what could I do? I declare to you, Nora, when old Monypenny got up and said ‘The man is here,’ I jumped up, I stood forward. And then I was confounded, I could not say a word.” Here he approached a little nearer and put out his hand to take hers. “Why should I, Nora⁠—now tell me why should I? when this other man says it was he. He ought to know,” Rintoul added, with a groan of faint tentative humour in his voice. He did not know how far he might venture to go.

Once more Nora stamped her foot on the ground. “Oh, I cannot away with you!” she cried. It was one of Miss Barbara’s old-fashioned phrases. She was at the end of her own. She would have liked, she thought, to strike him as he stood before her deprecating, yet every moment recovering himself.

“If another man chooses to take it upon him, why should I contradict him?” Rintoul said, with good sense unanswerable. “I was stunned with astonishment; but when you reflect, how could I contradict him? If he did it for John Erskine’s sake, it would have spoiled the arrangement.”

“John Erskine would never make any arrangement. If he had been to blame he would have borne it. He would not have shirked or drawn back!”

“You think better of John Erskine than of me, Nora. I do not know what it is, but I have no right to interfere. I’ll give the old fellow something when it’s all over. It is not for me he is doing it, whatever is his reason. I should spoil it all if I said a word. Will you forgive me now?” said Rintoul, with a mixture of calm reason and anxiety. He had quite recovered himself. And Nora, still in a flutter of slowly dissipating excitement, could find no argument against that sturdy good sense of his. For he was strong in sense, however worldly it might be.

“I cannot understand it at all. Do you know who the man was?” she said.

And then he laughed⁠—actually laughed⁠—though he was on the borders of desperation an hour ago. The echo of it seemed to run round the garden among the listening trees and horrified Nora. But at his next word she threw up her hands in consternation, with a cry of bewilderment, confusion, almost amusement too, though she would have thought that impossible⁠—“Old Rolls!”