"No. . . . You asked, and I had to say something; but it is no answer. Forgive me. It was the best I could find."
He still eyed her, between wrath and admiration.
"I think," she said, after a pause, "the true answer is just that I did wrongly—wrongly for the child's sake."
"That's certain. And your own?"
"My own? That does not seem to me to count so much. . . . Neither of us believe that a priest can hallow marriage; but once I felt that the touch of a certain one could defile it."
"You have never before reproached me with that."
"Nor mean to now. I chose to run from him; but, dear, I do not ask to run from the consequences."
"The blackguard has had his pretty revenge. Langton told me of it.
. . . All the prudes of Boston gather up their skirts, he says."
"What matter? Are we not happier missing them? . . . Honester, surely, and by that much at any rate the happier."
"Marry me, and I promise to force them all back to your feet."