“Mr Burge—dear Mr Burge—”
“I say—say that again.”
“Mr Burge,” said Hazel, laying her hands in his; “you have told me you loved me, and asked me to be your wife.”
“Yes,” he said, kissing her hand reverently, “and it’s been like going out of my sphere.”
“It would be cruel of me not to speak plainly to you.”
“Yes,” he said dejectedly, “it would; though it’s very hard when a man’s been filling himself full of hope to find it all go—right off at once.”
“It is my fate to bring misery and trouble amongst people,” she sobbed, “and I would have given anything to have spared you this. I respect and esteem you, Mr Burge, more than I can find words to say; but I could never love you as your wife.”
He dropped the hand he held, and turned slowly away that she might not see the workings of his face; and then, laying his arms upon the mantelpiece, he let his head go down, and for the next few minutes he stood there, with his chest heaving, crying softly like a broken-hearted child.
“I cannot bear it,” muttered Hazel, as she wrung her hands and gazed wildly about the sumptuously furnished room, as if in search of help; for the troubles of the past had told upon her nerves. She felt hysterical, and could not keep back her own tears, which at last burst forth in a wild fit of passionate sobbing, as she sank into the nearest chair and covered her face with her hands.
This roused her suitor, who took out his flaming orange handkerchief, and used it freely and simply, finishing off, after he had wiped his eyes, with a loud and sonorous blow of his nose.