“You have been deceived,” his mother declared, coldly and proudly; “by one who was not worthy even a second thought.”
“Mother!” he exclaimed, hurriedly, and then stopped. What could he say in defense of Margery? She was, indeed, all this. “Your wish is sudden,” he added, after a pause. “It comes to me quite unexpectedly; but I have only one answer to it—I shall never marry!”
Mrs. Crosbie compressed her lips and turned away.
“Just now you called yourself selfish,” she observed. “I think you were right.”
“Why should I marry, mother?” he cried, suddenly. “You know, or perhaps you can never know, what the past meant to me. I am not a vane to be turned by every wind. I have loved, and I shall not love again.”
“What has that to do with marriage?”
“I would not ask any woman to be a wife on such empty terms; it would be a sin. But it is not necessary. I would do anything, mother, in my power to please you; but this I cannot.”
“Are you my child?” asked his mother, quietly and coldly. “Can you waste your whole life, like a misanthrope, because a village coquette has laughed at and mocked you? There are good women’s hearts still in the world, women of our world, who can love and suffer as such creatures never can.”
“I will offer no woman my life without my love,” declared Stuart, firmly.
“What would you say if I were to tell you that there is one who would take it gladly, one who has watched and worked for you all these months in silence, and who, through everything, is steadfast and true as steel?”