“Heaven forbid!” said Julia, turning pale at the very idea. But he repeated doggedly that it must come to that, sooner or later. Then he reminded her of their solemn engagement, and put it to her whether it was a moral proceeding in her to go back from her plighted troth? What had he done to justify her in drawing back from her word? “I admit,” said he, “that I have suffered plenty of wrong for your sake: but what have I done wrong?”
Undeterred by the fear of immorality, the monotonous girl had but one reply to his multiform reasons: “This is no time for me to abandon my mother.”
“Ah, it is her you love: you don't care for me,” snapped Alfred.
“Don't I, dear Alfred?” murmured Julia.
“Forgive me! I'm a ruffian, a wretch.”
“You are my Alfred. But oh, have a little patience, dear.”
“A little patience? I have the patience of Job. But even his went at last.”
[I ought to have said they were in the passage now. The encroaching youth had gained an entrance by agitating her so at the door that she had to ask him in to hide her own blushes from the public.] She now gently reminded him how much happier they were than they had been for months. “Dear me,” said she, “I am almost happy: happier than I ought to be; could be quite so, but that I see you discontented.”
“Ah, you have so many about you that you love: I have only you.”
“And that is true, my poor Alfred.”