“Never mind them, my bird. People of her condition talk from the head; and that so often aches from confinement in close rooms that it makes them disagreeable.”
“It isn’t true what she said—that no foolish grace of yours can make an honest woman of me?”
“It isn’t true, Betty.”
“Why, I know my heart, and that the blame is mine. But you wouldn’t so punish me for a little offence. I would follow you through all the world, and take her gibes right meekly at your bidding. I am the better woman in my faith, and she’d give all her ladyship and her diamonds to know of you what I know.”
“If you are sure, Betty, I must believe—for you never speak an untruth.”
“Why should I, and shame my love? I have nothing but that to make me worthy of you.”
She clung to him and looked up in his eyes, imploring.
“When shall we be free? Oh, ’tis all the same as if you were a plough-boy.”
“Fortune favour us, my dear, and I will marry you in a month.”
She cried a little at that.