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He shook his head.
‘I would give you almost anything you want, love, but in this I must deny you.’
‘But why?’ Reaching up, she clutched his shirt and, through a gap in the fence, buried her face in his chest. ‘Do you want to die? Are you truly mad?’
Encircling her with his arms, he drew her even closer towards himself. I was debating again whether or not to intervene - but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to interrupt them. And there was still an iron fence between them, so things couldn’t really get very intimate. ‘I have no wish to die, Ella.’
‘Then why? Tell me, for heaven’s sake!’
‘Don’t you see?’ Pushing her away a bit, he raised her chin and forced her to look into his face. ‘I have to free you. I have to believe that you and I can be together. If that cannot be, life would not be worth living anymore. Not for me, anyway.’
Atta boy! I had to admit, part of me really liked this plan. If it worked, Ella would be rid of Sir Philip. If it didn’t, she’d be rid of this silly fellow. A win-win situation.
‘Isn’t it enough to know I love you?’ She asked, her voice thick. ‘To know that I will never, ever love anybody else, no matter what I shall be forced to do?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I’m not that noble, my dear. I need to feel your love, to feel you in my arms, safe and warm. I need to know that you can say to me “I love you” without blushing in shame. I need to know that I am yours and you are mine, now and forever.’
‘That can never be!’
‘It must and it shall be.’
Slowly, he began to untangle himself from her and from the fence. The latter took longer than one might have thought. In order to passionately embrace her, he’d had to squeeze his arms through some pretty tight spots. Apparently, he still hadn’t thought of using the ladder that still rested peacefully against the Conways’ garden shed.
‘What are you doing?’ Ella cried as he slipped from her grasp.
‘Going,’ he returned. ‘The time for talk has passed. Now it is time for action.’ His face took on a grim expression. ‘I am going to have to be fit and alert tomorrow. I had better call it a night.’
‘Edmund, you don't… you don't seriously mean you’ll go through with this?’
‘I have never been more serious about anything in my life. Except maybe once - when I first told you I loved you. And what I shall now do is practically the same - the only difference is that I shall translate the words into deeds.’
‘Edmund, no!’ She tried to stop him as he stepped away from the fence and turned, but he was too strong for her. He set out across the lawn, and I felt a lump in my throat. From the back he looked nothing like the cheerful tradesman’s son I had known him as throughout the time we had lived in this street. He looked like a tragic hero going towards his final end.
‘Please, Edmund! You can’t go! You can’t challenge Sir Philip. Please don't! Please!’
Halfway down the garden, he stopped and turned his head to look back at her wistfully.
‘I have to,’ was his only reply.
‘But what if he kills you?’ she wailed.
He smiled sadly.
‘Then I will die in the knowledge that I have done everything in my power to keep us together. It will be a comforting knowledge when the darkness closes in.’
Turning away again, he continued through the garden, towards his parents’ house.
‘Edmund, wait!’ Ella reached through the fence, as if she could grab him and drag him back to her side. But there were yards of distance between them. ‘Edmund, please! Don’t go!’
This time, he did not stop.
‘Edmund, my love, I’m begging you!’
She sank to her knees. By now the volume of her voice had risen considerably over the usual careful whisper she used for her secret rendezvous in the garden. I threw an anxious glance back at the house, but so far, nobody seemed to have heard.
‘I’m begging you, please, come back! You can’t do this, please!’
Still he did not stop. If I’d had a rock of the right size to hand, I’d have lobbed it at his silly receding head. Nobody made my sister cry like that! But simultaneously, another part of me wanted to hug him fiercely. He was willing to risk his own life to free my sister from a marriage she feared and despised. I couldn’t help respecting anybody who was ready to do that, even if I did want to throw rocks at his head.
