He
was so chivalrous and sympathetic that I was led in my turbulent state of
mind to become confidential, the more so when he told me he had known for
some time how I was being treated.
"'You must not marry that man,' he said 'It is an outrage for your people
to suggest such a thing. He is a big swell and all that, with heaps of
money, but any man in town who knows anything will tell you he is quite
impossible,'
"I had heard that, and had told my stepmother, but of course it did not
suit her to heed me. She cared for nothing beyond the fact that I should
be a countess, and said so.
"Archie and I talked together for a long time and with the result that in
my longing for protection from the powers against me and my indignation
at the way I was being treated I had promised when we parted to marry
him, and we had planned to elope together that very night.
"At that time we were living at Haynthorpe Hall--you know it?--about ten
miles from here. That evening I slipped out of the house after dinner and
met Archie, who was waiting for me at a quiet spot outside the village.
His plan was to drive across country to Branchester Junction, where it
was not likely we should be noticed or recognized, catch the night train
up to town and be married there next morning.
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