“That is enough--I understand,” he said, with a sort of mournful dignity quite new in Colin Granton. “I was only good enough for you when you were a child, and we are not children now. We never shall be children any more.”
“No--ah, no.” And the thought of that old time came upon me like a flood--the winter games at the Cedars--the blackberrying and bilberrying upon the sunshiny summer moors--the grief when he went to school, and the joy when he came home again--the love that was so innocent, so painless. And he had loved me ever since--me, not Lisabel; though for a time he tried flirting with her, he owned, just to find out whether or not I cared for him. I hid my face and sobbed.
And then, I had need to recover self-control; it is such an awful thing to see a man weep.
I stood by Colin till we were both calmer: trusting all was safe over; and that without the one question I most dreaded. But it came.
“Dora, _why_ do you not care for me? Is there--tell me or not, as you like--is there any one else?”
Conscience! let me be as just to myself as I would be to another in my place.
Once, I wrote that I had been “mistaken,” as I have been in some things, but not in all. Could I have honestly said so, taking all blame on myself and freeing all others from everything save mere kindness to a poor girl who was foolish enough, but very honest and true, and wholly ignorant of where things were tending, till too late; if I could have done this, I believe I should then and there have confessed the whole truth to Colin Granton. But as things are, it was impossible.
Therefore I said, and started to notice how literally my words imitated other words, the secondary meaning of which had struck me differently from their first, “that it was not likely I should ever be married.”
The dressing-bell rang, and I again tried to get away; but he whispered “Stop one minute--my mother--what am I to tell my mother?”
“Nothing. But she guesses, poor dear--and I was always going to tell her outright; but somehow I couldn't. But now, as you will tell your father and sisters, and--”
“No, Colin; I shall not tell any human being.”
And I was thankful that if I could not return his love I could at least save his pride, and his mother's tender heart.