So brooded Elizabeth in her heart, madded with malicious envy and passionate jealousy.  She loved this man, Owen Davies, as much as she could love anybody; at the least, she dearly loved the wealth and station of which he was the visible centre, and she hated the sister whom he desired.  If she could only discredit that sister and show her to be guilty of woman’s worst crime, misplaced, unlegalised affection, surely, she thought, Owen would reject her.

She was wrong.  She did not know how entirely he desired to make Beatrice his wife, or realise how forgiving a man can be who has such an end to gain.  It is of the women who already weary them and of their infidelity that men are so ready to make examples, not of those who do not belong to them, and whom they long for night and day.  To these they can be very merciful.

CHAPTER XIII

GEOFFREY LECTURES

Meanwhile Beatrice was walking homewards with an uneasy mind.  The trouble was upon her.  She had, it is true, succeeded in postponing it a little, but she knew very well that it was only a postponement.  Owen Davies was not a man to be easily shaken off.  She almost wished now that she had crushed the idea once and for all.  But then he would have gone to her father, and there must have been a scene, and she was weak enough to shrink from that, especially while Mr. Bingham was in the house.  She could well imagine the dismay, not to say the fury, of her money-loving old father if he were to hear that she had refused—­actually refused—­Owen Davies of Bryngelly Castle, and all his wealth.

Then there was Elizabeth to be reckoned with.  Elizabeth would assuredly make her life a burden to her.  Beatrice little guessed that nothing would suit her sister’s book better.  Oh, if only she could shake the dust of Bryngelly off her feet!  But that, too, was impossible.  She was quite without money.  She might, it was true, succeed in getting another place as mistress to a school in some distant part of England, were it not for an insurmountable obstacle.  Here she received a salary of seventy-five pounds a year; of this she kept fifteen pounds, out of which slender sum she contrived to dress herself; the rest she gave to her father.  Now, as she well knew, he could not keep his head above water without this assistance, which, small as it was, made all the difference to their household between poverty and actual want.  If she went away, supposing even that she found an equally well-paid post, she would require every farthing of the money to support herself, there would be nothing left to send home.  It was a pitiable position; here was she, who had just refused a man worth thousands a year, quite unable to get out of the way of his importunity for the want of seventy-five pounds, paid quarterly.  Well, the only thing to do was to face it out and take her chance.  On one point she was, however, quite clear; she would not marry Owen Davies.  She might be a fool for her pains, but she would not do it.  She respected herself too much to marry a man she did not love; a man whom she positively disliked.  “No, never!” she exclaimed aloud, stamping her foot upon the shingle.