"I thought you would get a place for me as a governess,—or a companion to some lady."
"Would that satisfy your ambition? I have got a place for you;—but it is here." As he spoke, he laid his hand upon his heart. "Not as a companion to a lady are you required to fulfil your duties here on earth. It is a fuller task of work that you must do. I trust,—I trust that it may not be more tedious." She looked at him again, and he did not now appear so old. There was a power of speech about the man, and a dignity which made her feel that she could in truth have loved him,—had it not been for John Gordon. "Unfortunately, I am older than you,—very much older. But to you there may be this advantage, that you can listen to what I may say with something of confidence in my knowledge of the world. As my wife, you will fill a position more honourable, and more suitable to your gifts, than could belong to you as a governess or a companion. You will have much more to do, and will be able to go nightly to your rest with a consciousness that you have done more as the mistress of our house than you could have done in that tamer capacity. You will have cares,—and even those will ennoble the world to you, and you to the world. That other life is a poor shrunken death,—rather than life. It is a way of passing her days, which must fall to the lot of many a female who does not achieve the other; and it is well that they to whom it falls should be able to accommodate themselves to it with contentment and self-respect. I think that I may say of myself that, even as my wife, you will stand higher than you would do as a companion."
"I am sure of it."
"Not on that account should you accept any man that you cannot love." Had she not told him that she did not love him;—even that she loved another? And yet he spoke to her in this way! "You had better tell Mrs Baggett to come to me."
"There is the memory of that other man," she murmured very gently.
Then the scowl came back upon his face;—or not a scowl, but a look rather of cold displeasure. "If I understand you rightly, the gentleman never addressed you as a lover."
"Never!"
"I see it all, Mary. Mrs Baggett has been violent and selfish, and has made you think thoughts which should not have been put in your head to disturb you. You have dreamed a dream in your early life,—as girls do dream, I suppose,—and it has now to be forgotten. Is it not so?"
"I suppose it was a dream."
"He has passed away, and he has left you to become the happiness of my life. Send Mrs Baggett to me, and I will speak to her." Then he came up to her,—for they had been standing about a yard apart,—and pressed his lips to hers. How was it possible that she should prevent him?