“But it is not possible this can content you. You must have some other hope and desire, Annie?”
“Perhaps I once had—and to-day is a good time to speak of it to you, because now it troubles me no longer. You know what my father desired, and what your father promised, for us both?”
“Yes. Did you desire it, Annie?”
“I do not desire it now. You were ever against it?”
“Oh Annie!—”
“It makes no matter, George. I shall never marry you.”
“Do you dislike me so much?”
“I am very fond of you. You are of my race and my kindred, and I love every soul of the Hydes that has ever tarried on this earth.”
“Well then?”
“I shall marry no one. I will show you the better way. Few can walk in it, but Doctor Roslyn says, he thinks it may be my part—my happy part—to do so:” and as she spoke she took from the little pocket at her side a small copy of the gospels, and it opened of its own account at the twentieth chapter of St. Luke. “See!” she said, “and read it for yourself, George—”