“Not in the sense of being offended. But she said it had caused her much suffering. She begged me to consider myself free. She would remain faithful, and if, in time to come, I cared to write to her again—After all these years, I can’t speak of it without huskiness. It seemed to me that I had behaved more like a scoundrel than ever. I thought I had better kill myself, and even planned ways of doing it—I did indeed. But after all we decided that our engagement should continue.”
“Of course.”
“You think it natural? Well, the engagement has continued till this day. A month ago I was forty, so that we have waited for seventeen years.”
Micklethwaite paused on a note of awe.
“Two of Fanny’s sisters are dead; they never married. The blind one Fanny has long supported, and she will come to live with us. Long, long ago we had both of us given up thought of marriage. I have never spoken to any one of the engagement; it was something too absurd, and also too sacred.”
The smile died from Everard’s face, and he sat in thought.
“Now, when are you going to marry?” cried Micklethwaite, with a revival of his cheerfulness.
“Probably never.”
“Then I think you will neglect a grave duty. Yes. It is the duty of every man, who has sufficient means, to maintain a wife. The life of unmarried women is a wretched one; every man who is able ought to save one of them from that fate.”
“I should like my cousin Mary and her female friends to hear you talk in that way. They would overwhelm you with scorn.”