“It’s not that! He promised never to speak of that sort of thing again. How dare you say such things to me, Colin? It’s not just--you know it isn’t. If you knew anything about love--but you don’t---- It is simply that I can’t promise to love and obey one man when I know in my heart that I don’t love him, but some one else.”
She had sprung up from her low seat and confronted him with flushed cheeks and grey eyes flashing. Colin hardly knew his quiet sister, and he felt abashed before her indignation. “Forgive me, Pen,” he said. “I only wanted to know all the ins and outs of the matter. Why didn’t you tell me about it before?”
“Do you think you are an encouraging person to tell things to?” demanded Penelope, still unreconciled. “No, I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to say that. It was my promise, Colin. You were so shocked at the idea of my breaking it, I thought I would sooner die. And so I tried to forget the--the other, and to like George, but I couldn’t make myself feel as I ought. I don’t want to hurt you--I know how fond you are of George--but it was the difference, the dreadful difference between the two men. I couldn’t help seeing it more and more.”
“And so you were very miserable?” She was beside him again now, with her face buried in his cushions, and his tone was tender.
“So miserable. And I have felt so wicked, Colin. It was almost a relief when you were so ill, and I couldn’t think of any one but you. When Elma came and made me go and rest, I couldn’t sleep, because the thought of George used to seize me like a terror. It was horrible to think of his coming back.”
Colin was stroking her hair, but there was a little bitterness in his voice as he said, “I seem to have been making a mistake all along. If I had guessed there was another man it would have been different; but I thought a girl could not want anything more than a kind husband, whom she might hope to help by her companionship. I knew Lady Haigh had prejudiced you against poor George----”
“No, that is not fair. I was quite willing to believe in George again on your word, but he never took the slightest trouble to show me that he cared for me. Even when I told him that before Christmas, he only made a kind of pretence, as if he knew I should have to marry him whether I liked him or not. I know I have been very wrong, Colin, but it was in listening to George at all, when I knew I didn’t care for him. It isn’t fickleness, really. I have tried hard to like him.”