Ermine sat up, and rallied all her forces, choked back the swelling of her throat, and said, “Dear Colin, it cannot be! I trusted you were understanding that when I told you how it was with me.”
He could not speak from consternation.
“No,” she said; “it would be wrong in me to think of it for an instant. That you should have done so, shows—O Colin, I cannot talk of it; but it would be as ungenerous in me to consent, as it is noble of you to propose it.”
“It is no such thing,” he answered; “it has been the one object and thought of my life, the only hope I have had all these years.”
“Exactly so,” she said, struggling again to speak firmly; “and that is the very thing. You kept your allegiance to the bright, tall, walking, active girl, and it would be a shame in the scorched cripple to claim it.”
“Don’t call yourself names. Have I not told you that you are more than the same?”
“You do not know. You are pleased because my face is not burnt, nor grown much older, and because I can talk and laugh in the same voice still.” (Oh, how it quivered!) “But it would be a wicked mockery in me to pretend to be the wife you want. Yes, I know you think you do, but that is just because my looks are so deceitful, and you have kept on thinking about me; but you must make a fresh beginning.”
“You can tell me that,” he said, indignantly.
“Because it is not new to me,” she said; “the quarter of an hour you stood by me, with that deadly calm in your white face, was the real farewell to the young hopeful dream of that bright summer. I wish it was as calm now.”
“I believed you dying then,” answered he.