“I am quite sure he will do nothing of the kind. Think of it, Mary. How can you bring yourself to be so false to a man?”
“I have not been false to him. I have been false to myself, but never to him. I told him how it was. When you drove me on—”
“Drove you on, Mary?”
“I do not mean to be ungrateful, or to say hard things; but when you made me feel that if he were satisfied I also might put up with it, I told him that I could never love him. I told him that I did love, and ever should love, Walter Marrable. I told him that I had nothing—nothing—nothing to give him. But he would take no answer but the one; and I did—I did give it him. I know I did; and I have never had a moment of happiness since. And now has come this letter. Janet, do not be cruel to me. Do not speak to me as though everything must be stern and hard and cruel.” Then she handed up the letter, and Mrs. Fenwick read it as they walked.
“And is he to be made a tool, because the other man has changed his mind?” said Mrs. Fenwick.
“Walter has never changed his mind.”
“His plans, then. It comes to the same thing. Do you know that you will have to answer for his life, or for his reason? Have you not learned yet to understand the constancy of his nature?”
“Is it my fault that he should be constant? I told him when he offered to me that if Walter were to come back to me and ask me again, I should go to him in spite of any promise that I had made. I said so as plain as I am saying this to you.”
“I am quite sure that he did not understand it so.”
“Janet, indeed he did.”
“No man would have submitted himself to an engagement with such a condition. It is quite impossible. What! Mr. Gilmore knew when you took him that if this gentleman should choose to change his mind at any moment before you were actually married, you would walk off and go back to him!”
“I told him so, Janet. He will not deny that I told him so. When I told him so, I was sure that he would have declined such an engagement. But he did not, and I had no way of escape. Janet, if you could know what I have been suffering, you would not be cruel to me. Think what it would have been to you to have to marry a man you did not love, and to break the heart of one you did love. Of course Mr. Gilmore is your friend.”
“He is our friend!”
“And, of course, you do not care for Captain Marrable?”
“I never even saw him.”
“But you might put yourself in my place, and judge fairly between us. There has not been a thought or a feeling in my heart concealed from you since first all this began. You have known that I have never loved your friend.”
“I know that, after full consideration, you have accepted him; and I know also, that he is a man who will devote his whole life to make you happy.”
“It can never be. You may as well believe me. If you will not help me, nor Mr. Fenwick, I must tell him myself;—or I must write to him and leave the place suddenly. I know that I have behaved badly. I have tried to do right, but I have done wrong. When I came here I was very unhappy. How could I help being unhappy when I had lost all that I cared for in the world? Then you told me that I might at any rate be of some use to someone, by marrying your friend. You do not know how I strove to make myself fond of him! And then, at last, when the time came that I had to answer him, I thought that I would tell him everything. I thought that if I told him the truth he would see that we had better be apart. But when I told him, leaving him, as I imagined, no choice but to reject me—he chose to take me. Well, Janet; at any rate, then, as I was taught to believe, there was no one to be ruined by this—no one to be broken on the wheel—but myself: and I thought that if I struggled, I might so do my duty that he might be satisfied. I see that I was wrong, but you should not rebuke me for it. I had tried to do as you bade me. But I did tell him that if ever this thing happened I should leave him. It has happened, and I must leave him.” Mrs. Fenwick had let her speak on without interrupting her, intending when she had finished, to say definitely, that they at the vicarage could not make themselves parties to any treason towards Mr. Gilmore; but when Mary had come to the end of her story her friend’s heart was softened towards her. She walked silently along the path, refraining at any rate from those bitter arguments with which she had at first thought to confound Mary in her treachery. “I do think you love me,” said Mary.
“Indeed I love you.”
“Then help me; do help me. I will go on my knees to him to beg his pardon.”
“I do not know what to say to it. Begging his pardon will be of no avail. As for myself, I should not dare to tell him. We used to think, when he was hopeless before, that dwelling on it all would drive him to some absolute madness. And it will be worse now. Of course it will be worse.”
“What am I to do?” Mary paused a moment, and then added, sharply—“There is one thing I will not do; I will not go
