Part 54 (1/2)
”Nonsense. I have been fitted for my trousseau.”
”Your what?”
”My wedding-dresses.”
”Oh, I beg pardon. I did not understand your French p.r.o.nunciation. I thought--but it does not matter what I thought.”
”Pray what is the sense of this?”
”Philippa, my affection for you is unabated. Do not suppose that I love you one whit the less. But I am oppressed by a horrible nightmare--daymare as well. I am haunted.”
”Haunted, indeed!”
”Yes; by my late wife. She allows me no peace. She has made up her mind that I shall not marry you.”
”Oh! Is that all? I am haunted also.”
”Surely not?”
”It is a fact.”
”Hush, hus.h.!.+” from persons in front and at the side. Neither Ben nor Philippa had noticed that the curtain had risen and that the play had begun.
”We are disturbing the audience,” whispered Mr. Woolfield. ”Let us go out into the pa.s.sage and promenade there, and then we can talk freely.”
So both rose, left their stalls, and went into the _couloir_.
”Look here, Philippa,” said he, offering the girl his arm, which she took, ”the case is serious. I am badgered out of my reason, out of my health, by the late Mrs. Woolfield. She always had an iron will, and she has intimated to me that she will force me to give you up.”
”Defy her.”
”I cannot.”
”Tut! these ghosts are exacting. Give them an inch and they take an ell.
They are like old servants; if you yield to them they tyrannise over you.”
”But how do you know, Philippa, dearest?”
”Because, as I said, I also am haunted.”
”That only makes the matter more hopeless.”
”On the contrary, it only shows how well suited we are to each other. We are in one box.”
”Philippa, it is a dreadful thing. When my wife was dying she told me she was going to a better world, and that we should never meet again.
_And she has not kept her word._”
The girl laughed. ”Rag her with it.”