"Yes," said the girl, smiling, "it is bitter. All my hopes! And such hopes! It is as though I were dead, and yet were left alive. If it had been small-pox, or anything in that way, I could have borne it. But this thing, this terrible misfortune!"
Then she laughed, and then burst out sobbing with loud tears, and hid her face.
"You will be married, and still be happy," said the doctor.
"Married! Rubbish! So much you know about it. Am I ever to get strong in my limbs again, so as to be able to cross the water and go back to my own country?"
Here the doctor assured her that she would be able to go back to her own country, if it were needed.
"Father," she said, as soon as the doctor had left her, "let there be an end to all this about Lord Castlewell. I will not marry him."
"But, my dear!"
"I will not marry him. There are two reasons why I should not. I do not love him, and he does not love me. There are two other reasons. I do not want to marry him, and he does not want to marry me."
"But he says he does."
"That is his goodness. He is very good. I do not know why a man should be so good who has had so bad a bringing up. Think of me,—how good I ought to be, as compared with him. I haven't done anything naughty in all my life worse than tear my frock, or scold poor Frank; and yet I find it harder to give him up, merely because of the grandeur, than he does to marry me, the poor singing girl, who can never sing again. No! My good looks are gone, such as they were. I can feel it, even with my fingers. You had better take me back to the States at once."