“Yes, she has, (in effect,”) was his mental reservation the second.
“Oh, how could—how could she do it?” inquired Drusilla, incredulously; for to her fond, worshipping heart, it seemed that any woman who could break faith with Alexander must be insane or lost.
“She loves Richard Hammond’s little finger more than she does my immortal soul! (Come that is wholly true, at all events,”) he added mentally.
“And you are grieved at this?” murmured the girl, mournfully.
“I! I grieved at it? I never was so glad of anything in my life! My child, I never loved Anna except as a cousin. She never loved me in any other than a cousinly way. We were betrothed by our parents—a sure process to prevent our ever falling in love with each other. Ours was to be ‘a union of hands and a union of lands,’ but not ‘a union of hearts.’ We really never wished to marry each other. She loved Richard as well as she can love anybody, and I—I love you as I never loved any other. Come, my darling, you are to be mine forever.”
“But Mr. Alexander—a poor girl like myself—your late housekeeper’s child—only half educated, too—I am not fit to be your wife,” she said, raising her meek eyes to his face, and then suddenly dropping them.
“Not fit to be my wife! If you are not, it is only because you are so much too good for me!” vehemently exclaimed Drusilla’s lover, and he spoke the truth.
“Oh no! Oh no! please do not say such things to me. I am but a poor, ignorant child, of very humble position. You are a gentleman of rank and wealth. Indeed, sir, it is not suitable——”
“Drusilla! You do not love me!” he exclaimed, as if he had been charging her with a great sin.
A year before, she would have thrown her arms around his neck, and amid tears and caresses, she would have assured him that she loved him more than all others on earth. But she could make no such protestations now, though her love for him had in this year grown and strengthened, until it absorbed her whole being. She could only raise a quick and quickly withdrawn deprecating glance to his face.