“Everything you have done and said has told me that, for two months past. Do not say it again.”
“I must go away from this place. I will go to-morrow.”
She looked up with startled eyes.
“Go away? Leave me? Ah, George, you will not be so unkind!”
The situation was certainly as strange as it was new, and George was very much confused by what was happening. His resolution to make everything clear was, however, as unbending as before.
“Mamie,” he said, “we must understand each other. Things must not go on as they have gone so long. If I were to stay here, do you know what I should be doing? I should be acting towards you as Constance Fearing acted with me, only it would be much worse, because I am a man, and I have no right to do such things, as women have.”
“It is different,” said the young girl, once more looking down into the water.
“No, it is not different,” George insisted. “I have no right to act as though I should ever love you, to make you think by anything I do or say, that such a thing is possible. I am a brute, I know. Forgive me, Mamie, dear. It is so much better that everything should be clearly understood now. We have known each other so long, and so well——”
“Nothing that you can say will make it seem right to me that you should go away——”
“It is right, nevertheless, and if I do not do it, as I should, I shall never forgive myself——”