“There are a dozen reasons why I cannot marry you just now.”
“Then what am I to do? Am I to be publicly disgraced and brought to shame? Is my whole life to be ruined because of my love for you? Oh, it is cruel, and piteously unjust!”
“Edith, will you listen to reason? Will you have patience?”
“Will I have patience?” repeated the poor girl. “Have I not had patience? And my forbearance is well-nigh gone; I cannot bear it. Charles, think for a moment of what all this means to me, and have some pity.”
“Yes. Speak; I will listen,” she returned wearily, trying to stifle the sobs which almost choked her.
“If you will only control your violence and be guided by me, there need be no disgrace in the matter--either to you or to me. No one knows of this; no one need know. All you have to do is to remain quietly at home until a further concealment of the truth would be impossible; then you will leave home, as you have done before, to visit your friends. Once free of the village, you will go to a place which I shall have found for you; and, afterwards, return home.”
She listened quietly while he spoke. When he ceased, she said nothing. Presently he said--
“I think,” returned the girl, in a voice of utter and hopeless despair--a voice which would have rent the heart of any man but this one, “I think, Charles, that your love for me, if it ever existed, is dead and buried. I think, nay, I am quite sure, that you have decided never to make me your wife.”
“Charles, it is the truth. If you had any love, any feeling for me, you would not, could not, speak as you have done to-night. If you meant to make me your wife, you would not subject me to such utter shame.”
The clergyman entirely lost his self-command. He uttered an exclamation, and impatiently freed himself from her touch.
“Your shame,” he said; “your disgrace--it is always that. But what of me? Have I no caste to lose? You talk of my love, but what of yours? If it exists, does it fill you with the least consideration for me? If you talk like this, you will make me wish that we had never met.”
“How much better it would have been for me!”
“You think so? Thank God, it is not too late to part.”
“But it is too late!” cried the girl, wildly. “I tell you, it is too late for me!”