The Moonstone - Page 234/404

Here was another of the marked peculiarities in her character disclosing

itself to me without reserve. Here was her sensitive horror of the bare

contact with anything mean, blinding her to every consideration of what

she owed to herself, hurrying her into a false position which might

compromise her in the estimation of all her friends! Up to this time,

I had been a little diffident about the propriety of the advice I had

given to her. But, after what she had just said, I had no sort of doubt

that it was the best advice that could have been offered; and I felt no

sort of hesitation in pressing it on her again.

She only shook her head, and repeated her objection in other words.

"He has been intimate enough with me to ask me to be his wife. He has

stood high enough in my estimation to obtain my consent. I can't tell

him to his face that he is the most contemptible of living creatures,

after that!"

"But, my dear Miss Rachel," I remonstrated, "it's equally impossible for

you to tell him that you withdraw from your engagement without giving

some reason for it."

"I shall say that I have thought it over, and that I am satisfied it

will be best for both of us if we part.

"No more than that?"

"No more."

"Have you thought of what he may say, on his side?"

"He may say what he pleases."

It was impossible not to admire her delicacy and her resolution, and it

was equally impossible not to feel that she was putting herself in the

wrong. I entreated her to consider her own position I reminded her that

she would be exposing herself to the most odious misconstruction of her

motives. "You can't brave public opinion," I said, "at the command of

private feeling."

"I can," she answered. "I have done it already."

"What do you mean?"

"You have forgotten the Moonstone, Mr. Bruff. Have I not braved public

opinion, THERE, with my own private reasons for it?"

Her answer silenced me for the moment. It set me trying to trace the

explanation of her conduct, at the time of the loss of the Moonstone,

out of the strange avowal which had just escaped her. I might perhaps

have done it when I was younger. I certainly couldn't do it now.

I tried a last remonstrance before we returned to the house. She was

just as immovable as ever. My mind was in a strange conflict of feelings

about her when I left her that day. She was obstinate; she was wrong.

She was interesting; she was admirable; she was deeply to be pitied. I

made her promise to write to me the moment she had any news to send.

And I went back to my business in London, with a mind exceedingly ill at

ease.