"I know you do not want me, and I am going away," he answered gloomily, his expectations stricken before her words. "I'm going, and I've come to tell you so."
"How much more am I to suffer to-day?"
"You can ask me that, Honor? My little girl, d'you suppose life's a bed of roses for me since your letter?"
"A bed of roses is the sum of your ambitions."
"Why, that's like old times when you can be merely rude to me! But is the old time gone? Is the new time different? Listen, Honor, and tell me the truth."
"I don't know the truth. Please go away and leave me alone; I can tell you nothing. Don't you see I don't want you? Be a man, if you know how, and go out of my sight."
The voice was not so harsh as the words, and he thought he saw the ghost of a hope behind it.
"Curious!" he said. "You're the third person this week who has told me to be a man. Well, I'll try. Only hear this, and answer it. I've just left Myles Stapledon on his way to Okehampton—gone for good."
"What is that to me?"
"Your looking-glass will tell you. Now, Honor, before God—yes, before God, answer me the truth. Do you love him?"