“I know that you are in earnest,” she said.
“No man was ever more so. My constancy has been tried during the time that you have been away. I do not say so as a reproach to you. Of course there can be no reproach. I have nothing to complain of in your conduct to me. But I think I may say that if my regard for you has outlived the pain of those months there is some evidence that it is sincere.”
“I have never doubted your sincerity.”
“Nor can you doubt my constancy.”
“Except in this, that it is so often that we want that which we have not, and find it so little worthy of having when we get it.”
“You do not say that from your heart, Mary. If you mean to refuse me again, it is not because you doubt the reality of my love.”
“I do not mean to refuse you again, Mr. Gilmore.” Then he attempted to put his arm round her waist, but she recoiled from him, not in anger, but very quietly, and with a womanly grace that was perfect. “But you must hear me first, before I can allow you to take me in the only way in which I can bestow myself. I have been steeling myself to this, and I must tell you all that has occurred since we were last together.”
“I know it all,” said he, anxious that she should be spared;—anxious also that he himself should be spared the pain of hearing that which she was about to say to him.
But it was necessary for her that she should say it. She would not go to him as his accepted mistress upon other terms than those she had already proposed to herself. “Though you know it, I must speak of it,” she said. “I should not, otherwise, be dealing honestly either with you or with myself. Since I saw you last, I have met my cousin, Captain Marrable. I became attached to him with a quickness which I cannot even myself understand. I loved him dearly, and we were engaged to be married.”
“You wrote to me, Mary, and told me all that.” This he said, striving to hide the impatience which he felt; but striving in vain.
“I did so, and now I have to tell you that that engagement is at an end. Circumstances occurred—a sad loss of income that he had expected—which made it imperative on him, and also on me in his behalf, that we should abandon our hopes. He would have been ruined by such a marriage—and it is all over.” Then she paused, and he thought that she had done; but there was more to be said, words heavier to be borne than any which she had yet uttered. “And I love him still. I should lie if I said that it was not so. If he were free to marry me this moment I should go to him.” As she said this, there came a black cloud across his brow; but he stood silent to hear it all to the last. “My respect and esteem for you are boundless,” she continued—“but he has my heart. It is only because I know that I cannot be his wife that I have allowed myself to think whether it is my duty to become the wife of another man. After what I now say to you, I do not expect that you will persevere. Should you do so, you must give me time.” Then she paused, as though it were now his turn to speak; but there was something further that she felt herself bound to say, and, as he was still silent, she continued. “My friends—those whom I most trust in the world, my aunt and Janet Fenwick, all tell me that it will be best for me to accept your offer. I have made no promise to either of them. I would tell my mind to no one till I told it to you. I believe I owe as much to you—almost as much as a woman can owe to a man; but still, were my cousin so placed that he could afford to marry a poor wife, I should leave you and go to him at once. I have told you everything now; and if, after this, you can think me worth having, I can only promise that I will endeavour, at some future time, to do my duty to you as your wife.” Then she had finished, and she stood before him—waiting her doom.
His brow had become black and still blacker as she continued her speech. He had kept his eyes upon her without quailing for a moment, and had hoped for some moment of tenderness, some sparkle of feeling, at seeing which he might have taken her in his arms and have stopped the sternness of her speech. But she had been at least as strong as he was, and had not allowed herself to show the slightest sign of weakness.
“You do not love me, then?” he said.
“I esteem you as we esteem our dearest friends.”
“And you will never love me?”
“How shall I answer you? I do love you—but not as I love him. I shall never again have that feeling.”
“Except for him?”
“Except for him. If it is to be conquered, I will conquer it. I know, Mr. Gilmore, that what I have told you will drive you from me. It ought to do so.”
“It is for me to judge of that,” he said, turning upon her quickly.
“In judging for myself I have thought it right to tell
