“Dora, why do you not care for me? Is there—tell me or not, as you like—is there any one else?”
Conscience! let me be as just to myself as I would be to another in my place.
Once, I wrote that I had been “mistaken,” as I have been in some things, but not in all. Could I have honestly said so, taking all blame on myself and freeing all others from everything save mere kindness to a poor girl who was foolish enough, but very honest and true, and wholly ignorant of where things were tending, till too late; if I could have done this, I believe I should then and there have confessed the whole truth to Colin Granton. But as things are, it was impossible.
Therefore I said, and started to notice how literally my words imitated other words, the secondary meaning of which had struck me differently from their first, “that it was not likely I should ever be married.”
Colin asked no more.
The dressing-bell rang, and I again tried to get away; but he whispered “Stop one minute—my mother—what am I to tell my mother?”
“How much does she know?”
“Nothing. But she guesses, poor dear—and I was always going to tell her outright; but somehow I couldn't. But now, as you will tell your father and sisters, and—”
“No, Colin; I shall not tell any human being.”
And I was thankful that if I could not return his love I could at least save his pride, and his mother's tender heart.