She turned hastily from him and hid her face in her hands, but he caught a sound like that of a sob repressed with difficulty.
"I might have known I was too savage, too rough for you. You are afraid, you think I might grow worse after the marriage. You will have a better husband in Lawrence. He will let you have your own way in everything."
The girl shook her head and slowly turned her face to him again.
"I am not afraid of you, though you are often a bit rough and wild. I know you can't help it, and I would have taken you as you were, ay, gladly, perhaps! But I will not take you as you are now, Ulric, as you have been ever since .... ever since the young mistress came home."
Ulric started, and a flaming blush spread over his face. He wished to break out in wrath, to bid her be silent, but he could not bring his lips to frame a syllable.
"Uncle thinks you care for no one because your head is taken up with other things," continued Martha, more and more excitedly. "Yes, indeed, quite other things! You have never given me a thought, and now you come all at once and want me to be your wife. You want some one to help drive away your thoughts, Ulric, don't you? and the first one who comes is good enough for that. Even I am good enough for that! But things are not so bad with me yet that I should be put to such a use. If I cared for you more than for the whole world beside, if it were to cost me my life to part from you, I would rather have Lawrence, I would rather have any one now than you!"
This passionate outbreak, contrasting with the girl's usually quiet demeanour, might have shown Ulric what deep root he had taken in her heart. Perhaps he did feel it, but the cloud still rested on his brow and the flush on his face grew deeper with every word. He gave her no answer, but, as she now broke out into loud weeping, stood at her side quite dumb, making no attempt to comfort or to calm her.
Some minutes passed in torturing silence. Martha lay with her head and arms resting on the table. Nothing was to be heard but the sound of her convulsive sobs and the monotonous ticking of the old clock against the wall.
At length Ulric stooped down to her. His voice was not so hard as it had been, but it was scarcely gentle; there was in it only a dull, low sound of pain.
"Never mind, Martha. I thought it might be better if you would help me. Perhaps it would only have been worse, and you are quite right not to risk it with me. Let things be as they have always been between us two."