Just think, Beatrice, what it will be when all
England--yes, and all the world--is gloating over your shame, and
half-a-dozen prints are using the thing for party purposes, clamouring
for the disgrace of the man who ruined you, and whom you will ruin. He
has a fine career; it shall be utterly destroyed. By God! I will hunt
him to his grave, unless you promise to marry me, Beatrice. Do that, and
not a word of this shall be said. Now answer."
Mr. Granger sank back in his chair; this savage play of human passions
was altogether beyond his experience--it overwhelmed him. As for
Elizabeth, she bit her thin fingers, and glared from one to the other.
"He reckons without me," she thought. "He reckons without me--I will
marry him yet."
But Beatrice leant for a moment against the wall and shut her eyes
to think. Oh, she saw it all--the great posters with her name and
Geoffrey's on them, the shameless pictures of her in his arms, the
sickening details, the letters of the outraged matrons, the "Mothers of
ten," and the moral-minded colonels--all, all! She heard the prurient
scream of every male Elizabeth in England; the allusions in the
House--the jeers, the bitter attacks of enemies and rivals.
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