He would vindicate both at a stroke, for a sign.

Nevertheless, he had been behaving cruelly.

She charged on him the guilt of the small preludes, archeries, anglings, veilings, evasions, all done with the eyelids and the mute of the lips, or a skirmisher word or a fan's flourish, and which, intended to pique the husband rather than incite the lover, had led Mrs.Lawrence Finchley to murmur at her ear, in close assembly, without a distinct designation of Mr.Morsfield, "Dangerous man to play little games with!" It had brought upon her this letter of declaration, proposal, entreaty.
This letter was the man's life in her hands, and safe, of course.

But surely it was a proof that the man loved her?
Aminta was in her five-and-twentieth year; when the woman who is uncertain of the having been loved, and she reputed beautiful, desirable, is impelled by a sombre necessity to muse on a declaration, and nibble at an idea of a test.

If "a dangerous man to play little games with," he could scarcely be dangerous to a woman having no love for him at all.