"Hardly," said she,—not finding at the moment any other word that she could say.
"Because I love you. You see what a plain-spoken John Bull I am, and how I come to the point at once. I want you to be my wife; and they say that perseverance is the best way when a man has such a want as that."
"You ought not to want it," she said, whispering the words as though she were unable to speak them out loud.
"But I do, you see. And why should I not want it?"
"I am not fit to be your wife."
"I am the best judge of that, Alice. You have to make up your mind whether I am fit to be your husband."
"You would be disgraced if you were to take me, after all that has passed;—after what I have done. What would other men say of you when they knew the story?"
"Other men, I hope, would be just enough to say, that when I had made up my mind, I was tolerably constant in keeping to it. I do not think they could say much worse of me than that."
"They would say that you had been jilted, and had forgiven the jilt."
"As far as the forgiveness goes, they would tell the truth. But, indeed, Alice, I don't very much care what men do say of me."