"Oh, Mr Rushton! – oh, Mr Rushton!" she cried, drooping from his arm, still hanging on tight: but with something different in the hold, something – John felt it almost with a pang – which meant perhaps that she had been able to keep her footing, too, in spite of the dragging of the tide, which had almost, yet more nearly, carried himself away. Then Mary had a sudden little access of pride, and let his arm drop. "If you think I'm not good enough, after – after saying such things and making me believe! But you're all the same; you are nothing but deceivers, as mother says. Or if you think I care for your money! I want none of your money! – as if it was got out of you for a breach of promise or something to buy me off! I go into court on a breach of promise to get money out of you! I would rather die!"
"And there's no question of promise, breached or otherwise," said John. "Here we are, Mary, in sight of your home; and you'll send your mother to me to-morrow. Good-bye, my dear, and good-bye – "
"I won't!" she murmured, but it was under her breath. And John stood and watched till she had reached the spot where the lights of the little tavern shone out upon the road. Then he turned and walked quickly home. He was not very comfortable, poor fellow. It had cost him something to drop poor Mary's clinging hands, and something more to hurt her feelings, which he sadly feared he must have done. It was brutal, he felt. If it had been a lady to whom he had spoken so, what flogging would have been too much for him? And yet, what else – what else could he have done? Suppose he had married her instead? The suggestion filled him with consternation. He said hurriedly to himself that it would not, could not have made her happy. And yet he felt that he was ashamed of himself as he marched home. He had played a poor part. It was heroic in its way, if the truth were known; but of that wretched kind of heroism which felt almost like shame. To treat a woman badly! He never thought, whatever censure he might incur, that such a thing as that would ever be said of him. And the dot, which had occurred to him on the spur of the moment to quiet his conscience – no doubt it would be flung back to him in his teeth, filling him with double shame.
He was still uncertain and excited about this when Mrs Brown, the landlady of the Old Hatchet, appeared in his rooms next day. His heart began to beat at the sight of her. He was no cynic. He thought it just as likely as not, and almost hoped for the sake of some foolish ideal – that she was coming to fling his promise back in his throat. But Mrs Brown was very friendly, with no warlike ideas. "My Mary said as I was to come to see you, sir," she said. "I doubt she's got some nonsense in her head, for it don't sound likely: but something about a present, as she said you was a-going to give her for her wedding – I'm sure it's most wonderful kind of you, if it's true."
"It is quite true, Mrs Brown," said John, with a curious sick sensation, something between disappointment and relief. The ground seemed somehow cut from beneath his feet, leaving him faintly struggling for standing. Neither indignation nor lamentation – neither the moan of injured love nor the resentment of virtue assailed. A wedding-present! how much more rational, how much better every way to call it that – but he made a gasp for his breath before he went on. "Yes, Mrs Brown, it is quite true. I admire your daughter very much. I am sure she is as good as gold."
"That she is, sir," cried the good woman, with energy; "and a girl had need be that, I can tell you, to see all you gentlemen so familiar and paying her such compliments and never to give way, not a step."
"It's very creditable, indeed," said John, with a smile, which was a little rueful. He would have liked to laugh, but dared not – nor did he feel at all like laughing if truth must be told. "I am going to leave Oxford," he said, "and I'd like to show my appreciation. I hope you are quite sure that the young man is worthy of her," he added, as he pulled his cheque-book out of its drawer.
"Oh, sir, he's worthy of her if ever a man was – and they've kep' company so long, ever since she was a little slip of a girl. I'm not a bit afraid of that. Lord, Mr Rushton, you don't mean to say as this is all for my Mary! A hundred pound! if it had been a matter of ten to buy her her wedding-gown – Sir, sir," cried the good woman, getting up from her chair, "there was nothing between you but good-day and good-night, for the Lord's sake tell me that!"
"Never!" said John, the blood flushing to his face – "on my honour, and as God hears me: nothing but friendship and admiration for as good a little girl as there is in the world."
Mrs Brown went away well pleased, with the cheque folded up very small in her purse. She drew her own conclusions – which were that John had endeavoured to establish other relations and had been confounded by Mary's goodness and sense of her own place. "He's been a-trying to carry on," she said to herself, nodding her head, "and has just got as good a settin' down as ever a gentleman had: or else he's asked her to marry him, private-like, and she wouldn't. Oh, trust my Mary for that! She's one as knows her place, and wouldn't consent to nothing of that sort: but he 'as behaved 'andsome for a disappointed man, and I never will hear a word against him," Mrs Brown said.
John stood at his window for some time after she had gone, with his hands in his pockets, whistling loudly. He felt as if he were digging his heels very deep into the soil to keep himself from doing something or other which it would not have been very wise to do. The tide was very strong, and if it once caught him, he did not know what he might do. Nor did he know what he wanted to do. He was in that state in which Satan finds some mischief still for every idle hand. He might have been led to concoct a strike or preach revolution had that stream caught the foot which he was digging into his carpet: or he might have done – worse. He might very easily have been plunged into unmentionable things: or he might have flung himself at the feet of the first pretty barmaid he encountered, out of spite against this one who had – behaved so very nicely. It was not a moment to stand and consider, even with the advantage of digging out two round holes in the carpet. He snatched up his rag of a gown and his college cap – (I will not pretend that he usually wore these things out of doors; he did not: and had got into the hands of proctors, and been disapproved of by Dons in consequence more times than I can reckon. But when one goes to see the Warden one is bound to academical costume.) He went there as fast as his feet could carry him, – to do something quickly and at once was the only salvation for him.
He was received by the Warden with a sort of grim kindness. "I perceive, Mr Rushton," that dignitary said, "that you have done the work the College required of you. It is done, but it is not at all well done, I am sorry to say."
"I know it isn't well done, sir," said John, with a rueful recollection of how hard it had been to do it at all.
"You have read your books flying – probably not in the vacation at all – probably since you came up. And you have not understood very well what you read. The work is done, however, and I'll say no more about how it was done. Let me ask you, however, Mr Rushton, what you think is the use of producing such an essay as that?"
"No use at all, sir," cried John. "I thought so all the time: more than no use. It has only driven me half mad and disgusted you. It is fit for nothing but to put in the fire. It should never have been written at all."