"Why?"
The position by some means had become suddenly reversed. It was she who had to speak of his pity and gratitude for her.
"Because you would discover that I was not fit to be your wife, that you had not sought me out of love, but out of kindness towards me for my services. You had pledged your word in one estate, and you would keep it in another, like an honest man valuing a promise he had made, and resolving to go through with it to the end, at whatever cost to his own better chances. Therefore, Sidney, you must understand that I cannot be your wife for pity's sake—that the man who is to become my husband, must love me with all his heart, and soul, and strength, or he may go his way for me!"
"I said that my romance had died out long ago. That I was too old, and had experienced too much sorrow to talk like a lover in a novel."
"It seems to me—I do not know, Sid—that true love must belong partly to romance. It is too pure—too full of fancies, if you will—to mingle readily with business life; it is too deep down in the heart to rise to an every-day surface—it is full of sacrifice as well as love. All this, my idea, not yours, Sidney—I who would at least be romantic in that fashion, and would care for no one but a romantic lover."
"You have altered, Mattie—you are talking like a school-girl now. If that be another reason for refusing me, it is unworthy of you."
"It is another reason, for all that," replied Mattie; "let me dismiss it at once, if you are ashamed of it. You have come hither oppressed—burdened, I may say—with a sense of duty to me; let me raise the load from you by saying, that I will not be your wife. If I would have married you even out of pity myself," she added, a little scornfully, "I will not take a man for a husband who would have had pity upon me!"
"Very well," he answered, moodily.
"As your wife, never—but oh! Sidney, as the old friend and sister, always! Don't think ill of me because I cannot see my way to happiness—don't think that there is any difference in me, or that I value you less than I ever did. You understand me?"
"Scarcely, Mattie—you have altered very much."