"I do. For your own good."
"Then I will not be released. Because freedom would not lead to the desired result."
"It would. It must. It is useless our going on so. I can never marry. You see yourself I cannot. If you were rich, or if I were rich, why, then——"
"If you were I would not marry you, in all probability."
"And why? Should I not be the same Molly then?" With a wan little smile. "Well, if you were rich I would marry you gladly, because I know your love for me is so great you would not feel my dear ones a burden. But as it is—yes—yes—we must part."
"You can speak of it with admirable coolness," says he, rather savagely. "After all, at the best of times your love for me was lukewarm."
"Was it?" she says, and turns away from him hurt and offended.
"Is my love the thing of an hour," he goes on, angry with her and with himself in that he has displeased her, "that you should talk of the good to be derived from the sundering of our engagement? I wish to know what it is you mean. Do you want to leave yourself free to marry a richer man?"
"How you misjudge me?" she says, shrinking as if from a blow. "I shall never marry. All I want to do is to leave you free to"—with a sob—"to—choose whom you may."
"Very good. If it pleases you to think I am free, as you call it, be it so. Our engagement is at an end. I may marry my mother's cook to-morrow morning, if it so pleases me, without a dishonorable feeling. Is that what you want? Are you satisfied now?"