'But you love me,' she said, unaffrighted.
He started back perceptibly.
After a moment, he replied, still playfully, 'I never said so.'
'No, sir; but-but-' she lowered her eyes; a coquette could not have done it more artlessly-'but I-know it.'
The accusation of loving her set all his suppressed repugnances and prejudices bristling in contradiction. He cursed the weakness that had got him into this soul-racking situation. The silence clamoured for him to speak-to do something.
'What-what were you crying about before?' he said abruptly.
'I-I don't know, sir,' she faltered.
'Was it Tom's death?'
'No, sir, not much. I did think of him black-berrying with me and our little Sally-but then he was so wicked! It must have been what missus said; and I was frightened because the vicar was coming to take me away-away from you; and then-oh, I don't know-I felt-I couldn't tell you-I felt I must cry and cry, like that night when-' she paused suddenly and looked away.
'When,' he said encouragingly.
'I must go-Rosie,' she murmured, and took up the tea-tray.
'That night when-' he repeated tenaciously.
'When you first kissed me,' she said.
He blushed. 'That-that made you cry!' he stammered. 'Why?'
'Please, sir, I don't know.'
'Mary Ann,' he said gravely, 'don't you see that when I did that I was-like your brother Tom?'
'No, sir. Tom didn't kiss me like that.'
'I don't mean that, Mary Ann; I mean I was wicked.'
Mary Ann stared at him.
'Don't you think so, Mary Ann?'
'Oh, no, sir. You were very good.'
'No, no, Mary Ann. Don't say good.'
'Ever since then I have been so happy,' she persisted.
'Oh, that was because you were wicked too,' he explained grimly. 'We have both been very wicked, Mary Ann; and so we had better part now, before we get more wicked.'
She stared at him plaintively, suspecting a lurking irony, but not sure.
'But you didn't mind being wicked before!' she protested.
'I'm not so sure I mind now. It's for your sake, Mary Ann, believe me, my dear.' He took her bare hand kindly and felt it burning. 'You're a very simple, foolish little thing, yes, you are. Don't cry. There's no harm in being simple. Why, you told me yourself how silly you were once when you brought your dying mother cakes and flowers to take to your dead little sister. Well, you're just as foolish and childish now, Mary Ann, though you don't know it any more than you did then. After all you're only nineteen-I found it out from the vicar's letter. But a time will come-yes, I'll warrant in only a few months' time you'll see how wise I am and how sensible you have been to be guided by me. I never wished you any harm, Mary Ann, believe me, my dear, I never did. And I hope, I do hope so much that this money will make you happy. So you see you mustn't go away with me now-you don't want everybody to talk of you as they did of your brother Tom, do you, dear? Think what the vicar would say.'
But Mary Ann had broken down under the touch of his hand and the gentleness of his tones.
'I was a dead leaf so long, I don't care!' she sobbed passionately. 'Nobody never bothered to call me wicked then. Why should I bother now?'
Beneath the mingled emotions her words caused him was a sense of surprise at her recollection of his metaphor.
'Hush! You're a silly little child,' he repeated sternly. 'Hush! or Mrs. Leadbatter will hear you.' He went to the door and closed it tightly. 'Listen, Mary Ann! Let me tell you once for all that even if you were fool enough to be willing to go with me, I wouldn't take you with me. It would be doing you a terrible wrong.'
She interrupted him quietly.
'Why more now than before?'
He dropped her hand as if stung, and turned away. He knew he could not answer that to his own satisfaction, much less to hers.
'You're a silly little baby,' he repeated resentfully. 'I think you had better go down now. Missus will be wondering.'
Mary Ann's sobs grew more spasmodic. 'You are going away without me,' she cried hysterically.
He went to the door again, as if apprehensive of an eavesdropper. The scene was becoming terrible. The passive personality had developed with a vengeance.
'Hush, hush!' he cried imperatively.
'You are going away without me. I shall never see you again.'
'Be sensible, Mary Ann. You will be-'
'You won't take me with you.'
'How can I take you with me?' he cried brutally, losing every vestige of tenderness for this distressful vixen. 'Don't you understand that it's impossible-unless I marry you,' he concluded contemptuously.
Mary Ann's sobs ceased for a moment.
'Can't you marry me, then?' she said plaintively.
'You know it is impossible,' he replied curtly.
'Why is it impossible?' she breathed.
'Because-' He saw her sobs were on the point of breaking out, and had not the courage to hear them afresh. He dared not wound her further by telling her straight out that, with all her money, she was ridiculously unfit to bear his name-that it was already a condescension for him to have offered her his companionship on any terms.
He resolved to temporise again.
'Go downstairs now, there's a good girl; and I'll tell you in the morning. I'll think it over. Go to bed early and have a long, nice sleep-missus will let you-now. It isn't Monday yet; we have plenty of time to talk it over.'
She looked up at him with large appealing eyes, uncertain, but calming down.
'Do, now, there's a dear.' He stroked her wet cheek soothingly.
'Yessir,' and almost instinctively she put up her lips for a good-night kiss. He brushed them hastily with his. She went out softly, drying her eyes. His own grew moist-he was touched by the pathos of her implicit trust. The soft warmth of her lips still thrilled him. How sweet and loving she was! The little dialogue rang in his brain.
'Can't you marry me, then?'
'You know it is impossible.'
'Why is it impossible?'
'Because-'
'Because what?' an audacious voice whispered. Why should he not? He stilled the voice but it refused to be silent-was obdurate, insistent, like Mary Ann herself. 'Because-oh, because of a hundred things,' he told it. 'Because she is no fit mate for me-because she would degrade me, make me ridiculous-an unfortunate fortune- hunter, the butt of the witlings. How could I take her about as my wife? How could she receive my friends? For a housekeeper-a good, loving housekeeper-she is perfection, but for a wife-
'Why is it impossible?' repeated the voice, catching up the cue. And then, from that point, the dialogue began afresh.
'Because this, and because that, and because the other-in short, because I am Lancelot and she is merely Mary Ann.'
'But she is not merely Mary Ann any longer,' urged the voice.
'Yes, for all her money, she is merely Mary Ann. And am I to sell myself for her money-I who have stood out so nobly, so high-mindedly, through all these years of privation and struggle? And her money is all in dollars. Pah! I smell the oil. Struck ile! Of all things in the world, her brother should just go and strike ile!' A great shudder traversed his form. 'Everything seems to have been arranged out of pure cussedness, just to spite me. She would have been happier without the money, poor child-without the money, but with me. What will she do with all her
