‘I blame you?’ said Clennam. ‘My dearest girl! I blame you? No!’
After clasping both her hands upon his arm, and looking confidentially up into his face, with some hurried words to the effect that she thanked him from her heart (as she did, if it be the source of earnestness), she gradually composed herself, with now and then a word of encouragement from him, as they walked on slowly and almost silently under the darkening trees.
‘And, now, Minnie Gowan,’ at length said Clennam, smiling; ‘will you ask me nothing?’
‘Oh! I have very much to ask of you.’
‘That’s well! I hope so; I am not disappointed.’
‘You know how I am loved at home, and how I love home. You can hardly think it perhaps, dear Mr Clennam,’ she spoke with great agitation, ‘seeing me going from it of my own free will and choice, but I do so dearly love it!’
‘I am sure of that,’ said Clennam. ‘Can you suppose I doubt it?’
‘No, no. But it is strange, even to me, that loving it so much and being so much beloved in it, I can bear to cast it away. It seems so neglectful of it, so unthankful.’
‘My dear girl,’ said Clennam, ‘it is in the natural progress and change of time. All homes are left so.’
‘Yes, I know; but all homes are not left with such a blank in them as there will be in mine when I am gone. Not that there is any scarcity of far better and more endearing and more accomplished girls than I am; not that I am much, but that they have made so much of me!’