“There are things in life worse than death, Aspatria. There is dishonour, disgrace, shame.”
“Is sorrow dishonour? Is it a disgrace to love? Is it a shame to weep when love is dead?”
“Ay, my little lass, it may be a great wrong to love and to weep. There is a shadow around you, Aspatria; if people speak of you they drop their voices and shake their heads; they wonder, and they think evil. Your good name is being smiled and shaken away, and I cannot find any one, man or woman, to thrash for it.”
She stood listening to him with wide-open eyes, and lips dropping a little apart, every particle of colour fled from them.
“It is for this reason Fenwick is to marry you.”
“You forced him; I know you forced him.” She seemed to drag the words from her mouth; they almost shivered; they broke in two as they fell halting on the ear.
“Well, I must say he did not need forcing, when he heard your good name was in danger. He said, manly enough, that he would make it good with his own name. I do not much think I could have either frightened or flogged him into marrying you.”
“Oh, Will! I cannot marry him in this way! Let people say wicked things of me, if they will.”
“Nay, I will not! I cannot help them thinking evil; but they shall not look it, and they shall not say it.”