“You must understand me,” said Norman, striving to speak calmly. “You have been—words will not express what you have been to me for years past, but I thought you too far beyond my hopes. I knew I ought to be removed from you—I believed that those who are debarred from earthly happiness are marked for especial tasks. I never intended you to know what actuated me, and now the work is undertaken, and—and I cannot turn back,” he added quickly, as if fearing himself.
“No indeed,” was her steady reply.
“Then I may believe it!” cried Norman. “You do—you will—you deliberately choose to share it with me?”
“I will try not to be a weight on you,” answered the young girl, with a sweet mixture of resolution and humility. “It would be the greatest possible privilege. I really do not think I am a fine lady ingrain, and you will teach me not to be too unworthy.”
“I? Oh, Meta, you know not what I am! Yet with you, with you to inspire, to strengthen, to cheer—Meta, Meta, life is so much changed before me, that I cannot understand it yet—after the long dreary hopelessness—”
“I can’t think why—” Meta had half said, when feminine dignity checked the words, consciousness and confusion suddenly assailed her, dyed her cheeks crimson, and stifled her voice.
It was the same with Norman, and bashfulness making a sudden prey of both—on they went under its dominion, in a condition partaking equally of discomfort and felicity; dreading the sound of their own voices, afraid of each other’s faces, feeling they were treating each other very strangely and ungratefully, yet without an idea what to say next, or the power of speaking first; and therefore pacing onwards, looking gravely straight along the path, as if to prevent the rabbits and foxgloves from guessing that anything had been passing between them.
Dr. May had made his call at Drydale, and was driving up a rough lane, between furzy banks, leading to Cocksmoor, when he was aware of a tall gentleman on one side of the road and a little lady on the other, with the whole space of the cart-track between them, advancing soberly towards him.
“Hallo! Why, Meta! Norman! what brings you here? Where are you going?”
Norman perceived that he had turned to the left instead of to the right, and was covered with shame.