"Why not?" he asked, suddenly changing his tone, and speaking sharply.
I dare say it will seem ridiculous to some people, but it is really true that he shook my resolution to go to Major Fitz-David when he put his arm round me. Even a mere passing caress from him stole away my heart, and softly tempted me to yield. But the ominous alteration in his tone made another woman of me. I felt once more, and felt more strongly than ever, that in my critical position it was useless to stand still, and worse than useless to draw back.
"I am sorry to disappoint you," I answered. "It is impossible for me (as I told you at Ramsgate) to be ready to sail at a moment's notice. I want time."
"What for?"
Not only his tone, but his look, when he put that second question, jarred on every nerve in me. He roused in my mind--I can't tell how or why--an angry sense of the indignity that he had put upon his wife in marrying her under a false name. Fearing that I should answer rashly, that I should say something which my better sense might regret, if I spoke at that moment, I said nothing. Women alone can estimate what it cost me to be silent. And men alone can understand how irritating my silence must have been to my husband.
"You want time?" he repeated. "I ask you again--what for?"
My self-control, pushed to its extremest limits, failed me. The rash reply flew out of my lips, like a bird set free from a cage.
"I want time," I said, "to accustom myself to my right name."
He suddenly stepped up to me with a dark look.
"What do you mean by your 'right name?'"
"Surely you know," I answered. "I once thought I was Mrs. Woodville. I have now discovered that I am Mrs. Macallan."
He started back at the sound of his own name as if I had struck him--he started back, and turned so deadly pale that I feared he was going to drop at my feet in a swoon. Oh, my tongue! my tongue! Why had I not controlled my miserable, mischievous woman's tongue!
"I didn't mean to alarm you, Eustace," I said. "I spoke at random. Pray forgive me."
He waved his hand impatiently, as if my penitent words were tangible things--ruffling, worrying things, like flies in summer--which he was putting away from him.