Gillian tried to take her arm away and to say, “Common humanity,” but she did not get the words out.
“No, no!” he said. “Confess that if it had been that fisher-boy, you would not be here now!” and he kept tight the arm that she was going to take away. Her face was in a flame.
“Well, well; and if—if it wasn’t, you need not make such a fuss about it.”
“Not when it is the first ray of hope you have afforded me, for the only joy of my life?”
“I never meant to afford—”
“But you could not help.”
“Oh, don’t! I never meant it. Oh dear! I never meant to be worried about troublesome things like this till I had got older, and learnt a great deal more; and now you want to upset it all. It is very—very disagreeable.”
“But you need not be upset!” poor Ernley Armytage pleaded. “Remember, I am going away for three years. May I not take hope with me?”
Gillian paused.
“Well,” again she said, “I do like you—I mean, I don’t mind you as much as most people; you have done something, and you have some sense.”