Perhaps Leonard saw the pain he was giving, for he softened, and said, 'Miss May, I have thought it over, and I cannot go back. I know I was carried away by passion at the first moment, and I was willing to make amends. I was rejected, as you know. Was it fit that we should go on living together?'
'I do not ask you to live together.'
'When he reproached me with the cost of my maintenance, and threatened me with the mill if I lost the scholarship, which he knew I could not get, I said I would abide by those words. I do abide by them.'
'There is no reason that you should. Why should you give up all your best and highest hopes, because you cannot forgive your brother?'
'Miss May, if I lived with you and the Doctor, I could have such aims. Henry has taken care to make them sacrilege for me. I shall never be fit now, and there's an end of it.'
'You might—'
'No, no, no! A school, indeed! I should be dismissed for licking the boys before a week was out! Besides, I want the readiest way to get on in the world; I must take care of my sisters; I don't trust one moment to Henry's affection for any of them. This is no home for me, and it soon may be no home for them!' and the boy's eyes were full of tears, though his voice struggled for firmness and indifference.
'I am very sorry for you, Leonard,' said Ethel, much more affectionately, as she felt herself nearer her friend of Coombe. 'I am glad you have some better motives, but I do not see how you will be more able to help them in this way.'
'I shall be near them,' said Leonard; 'I can watch over them. And if—if—it is true what they say about Henry and Mrs. Pugh—then they could have a cottage near the mill, and I could live with them. Don't you see, Miss May?'
'Yes; but I question whether, on further acquaintance, you will wish for your sisters to be with their relations there. The other course would put you in the way of a better atmosphere for them.'