‘Because you’re a minister, I suppose,’ replied Nell, ‘and all your mind is set upon your chapel and sermons and the open-air preaching. Isn’t that it?’ with a shy glance upwards to see how he took the suggestion. But Hugh only sighed and turned away.
‘No, no; why should that be it? Because I’m a minister, and want to do all I can for God whilst I live, am I the less a man with less of a man’s cravings for love and companionship? No, Nell, there is a reason for it, but a very different one from what you imagine. The reason I have never given a thought to marriage yet is because when I was a lanky, awkward lad, there was a little maid whom I used to call my sweetheart—who used to let me carry her over the boulders in the river, to go with her black-berrying, to walk beside her as she went to and came from church. Though, as we grew up, I was separated from that little maid, Nell, I never forgot her, and I never shall. No other will take her place with me.’
‘Oh, don’t say that, Hugh, pray don’t say that!’ cried Nell, with visible agitation. ‘You mustn’t! It is folly—worse than folly, for that little maid will never be yours again—never, never!’
She uttered the last words with so deep a sigh that it sounded almost like a requiem over her departed, innocent childhood. But Hugh would not accept it as such.
‘But why, dear Nell?’ he questioned. ‘We have met again, and we are both free. What objection can there be to our marriage, if you have none? I would not hurry you. You should name your own time, only let us be engaged. I have told you that I can keep you in comfort, and if parting with your parents is an obstacle, I’ll consent to anything you think best. Only don’t send me away without hope. You will take all the spirit out of my life and work if you do. I think your people like me—I don’t anticipate any trouble with them, but the word that is to make me happy must come from your lips, Nell—from yours alone!’
‘It can never come from them,’ answered Nell sadly.
‘Don’t say that, my little sweetheart of olden days. Oh, Nell, if you only knew, if I could only make you understand how I have kept your image in my heart all these years, how your face has come between me and my duties, till I’ve had to drive it away by sheer force of will. When I found you had come back to Usk, I thought God had sent you expressly for me. Don’t say now, after all my hopes and longings to meet you again—after you have come back from the grave to me, Nell—don’t say, for God’s sake, that it has been all in vain!’
He bowed his head upon his outstretched arm as he spoke, and Nell knew, though she could not see, that he was weeping.
‘What can I say to you, Hugh,’ she began, after a pause. ‘I do love you for all your goodness to me, but not in that way. I cannot be your wife. If you knew me as well as I know myself, you would never ask it, for I am not fit for it, Hugh. I am not worthy.’
The young man raised his head in astonishment.