She had pictured him saying all sorts of endearing things, and
making all sorts of loving protestations; and now it had come to
this--she had been asked as if it were merely a matter of avoiding
scandal. It was too great a shock. She lay silently crying, while
Hugh, his castles in the air having crumbled around him, was trying
in a dazed way to frame a letter to Mr. Grant.
His thoughts were anything but pleasant. What a fool he had been,
talking to her like that! Making it look as if he had only proposed
to her because he ought to protect her good name! Why hadn't
he spoken to her before--in the tree, on the ride home, any other
time? Why hadn't he spoken differently? To him the refusal seemed
the end of all things. He thought of asking Mr. Grant to give him
the management of the most out-back place he had, so that he could go
away and bury himself. He even thought of resigning his position
altogether and going to the goldfields. Red Mick and his delinquencies
seemed but small matters now; and, after what had passed, he must,
of course, see that Miss Grant was not dragged into the business.
So he sat down and began to write.
The letter took a good deal of thinking over. It had got about the
station that Red Mick had at last been caught in flagrante delicto;
the house-cook had told the cook at the men's hut, and he had told
the mailman, who stopped on the road to tell the teamsters ploughing
along with their huge waggons to Kiley's Crossing; they told the
publican at Kiley's, and he told everybody he saw. The children
made a sort of play out of it, the eldest boy personating Red Mick,
while two of the younger ones hid in a fallen tree, and were routed
out by Thomas Carlyle. The station-hands were all excitement; the
prospect of a big law-case was a real godsend to them. To drop the
matter would be equivalent to a confession of defeat, but, after
what had passed, Hugh had no option. So he told Mr. Grant that, on
thinking it over, he did not consider it advisable to go on with
the case against Red Mick; Miss Grant would have to go into the
box to give evidence, which would be very unpleasant for her.
Poor Hugh! He was too honourable to give any false reason, and too
shy to tell the whole truth. If he had said that there was no hope
of a conviction, it would have been all right. But consideration
for the feelings of anyone, even his own daughter, was to Billy the
Bully quite incomprehensible, and he wrote back, on a letter-card,
"Go on with the prosecution."