"Tell you something, Mary," he repeated. "I really don't know what you mean—no, honestly, I have not a notion."
"I don't wish to pry into your secrets," she said, coldly. "I learned them accidentally, but as you don't wish to take me into your confidence we will say no more about it."
"But we must say more about it," he replied. "I repeat I have no idea of what you are talking about. I have no secret whatever on my mind. By your manner it must be something serious, and I think I have a right to know what it is."
She was silent for a moment and then said—
"If you wish it I can have no possible objection to tell you. I will finish the question I began twice. I should have thought that you would have wished that your stores should be sent to the lady you are engaged to."
Cuthbert looked at her in silent surprise.
"My dear Mary," he said, gravely, at last, "either you are dreaming or I am. I understood that your reply to my question, the year before last, was as definite and as absolute a refusal as a man could receive. Certainly I have not from that moment had any reason to entertain a moment's doubt that you yourself intended it as a rejection."
"What are you talking about?" she asked, rising to her feet with an energy of which a few minutes before she would have deemed herself altogether incapable. "Are you pretending that I am alluding to myself, are you insulting me by suggesting that I mean that I am engaged to you?"
"All I say is, Mary, that if you do not mean that, I have not the most remote idea in the world what you do mean."
"You say that because you think it is impossible I should know," Mary retorted, indignantly, "but you are mistaken. I have had it from her own lips."