"You may be sure of this, my dear," says I, in a gentler tone, "if you were anything but what you are, Mr. Godwin would not marry you."
"Why, then, not tell him what I am?" asks she, boldly.
"That means that you would be to-morrow what you're not to-day."
"If he told me he had done wrong, I could forgive him, and love him none the less."
"Your conditions are not the same. He is a gentleman by birth, you but a player's daughter. Come, child, be reasonable. Ponder this matter but a moment justly, and you shall see that you have all to lose and nought to gain by yielding to this idle fancy. Is he lacking in affection, that you would seek to stimulate his love by this hazardous experiment?"
"Oh, no, no, no!" cries she.
"Would he be happier knowing all?" (She shakes her head.) "Happier if you force him to give you up and seek another wife?" (She starts as if flicked with a whip.) "Would you be happier stripped of your possessions, cast out of your house, and forced to fly from justice with your father?" (She looks at me in pale terror.) "Why, then, there's nothing to be won, and what's to lose? the love of a noble, honest gentleman, the joy of raising him from penury."
"Oh, say no more," cries she, in passion. "I know not what madness possessed me to overlook such consequences. I kiss you for bringing me to my senses" (with that she catches up my hand and presses her lips to it again and again). "Look in my face," cries she, "and if you find a lurking vestige of irresolution there, I'll tear it out."
Indeed, I could see nothing but set determination in her countenance,--a most hard expression of fixed resolve, that seemed to age her by ten years, astonishing me not less than those other phases in her rapidly developing character.
"Now," says she, quickly, and with not a note of her repining tone, "what was that you spoke of lately,--you are to be our steward?"