"I think you might trust that to me, Lucy," said Thomas, falling back upon his old attempted relation of religious instructor to his friend.
Lucy was silent for a moment; but after what she had gone through in the night, she knew that the time had come for altering their relative position if not the relation itself.
"No, Thomas," said she; "I must take my own duty into my own hands. I will not go on this way."
"Do you think then, Lucy, that in affairs of this kind a fellow ought to do just what his parents want?"
"No, Thomas. But I do think he ought not to keep such things secret from them."
"Not even if they are unreasonable and tyrannical?"
"No. A man who will not take the consequences of loving cannot be much of a lover."
"Lucy!" cried Thomas, now stung to the heart.
"I can't help it, Thomas," said Lucy, bursting into tears; "I must speak the truth, and if you cannot bear it, the worse for me—and for you, too, Thomas."