"Try, try to understand me," entreats she, desperately, following him and laying her hand upon his arm. "It is only this. It would not make you happy,—not afterwards, when you could see the difference between me and the other women you have known. You are a gentleman; I am only a farmer's niece." She says this bravely, though it is agony to her proud nature to have to confess it.
"If that is all," says Geoffrey, with a light laugh, laying his hand over the small brown one that still rests upon his arm, "I think it need hardly separate us. You are, indeed, different from all the other women I have met in my life,—which makes me sorry for all the other women. You are dearer and sweeter in my eyes than any one I have ever known! Is not this enough? Mona, are you sure no other reason prevents your accepting me? Why do you hesitate?" He has grown a little pale in his turn, and is regarding her with intense and jealous earnestness. Why does she not answer him? Why does she keep her eyes—those honest telltales—so obstinately fixed upon the ground? Why does she show no smallest sign of yielding?
"Give me my answer," he says, sternly.
"I have given it," returns she, in a low tone,—so low that he has to bend to hear it. "Do not be angry with me, do not—I——"
"'Who excuses himself, accuses himself,'" quotes Geoffrey. "I want no reasons for your rejection. It is enough that I know you do not care for me."
"Oh, no! it is not that! you must know it is not that," says Mona, in deep grief. "It is that I cannot marry you!"
"Will not, you mean!"
"Well, then, I will not," returns she, with a last effort at determination, and the most miserable face in the world.
"Oh, if you will not," says Mr. Rodney, wrathfully.
"I—will—not," says Mona, brokenly.