She left the sentence incomplete.
She made her declaration abruptly. "I love Mr. Trafford," she said, with a catch in her voice, "and I don't love Mr. Magnet."
Mrs. Pope received this like one who is suddenly stabbed. She sat still as if overwhelmed, one hand pressed to her side and her eyes closed. Then she said, as if she gasped involuntarily—
"It's too dreadful! Marjorie," she said, "I want to ask you to do something. After all, a mother has some claim. Will you wait just a little. Will you promise me to do nothing—nothing, I mean, to commit you—until your father has been able to make inquiries. Don't see him for a little while. Very soon you'll be one-and-twenty, and then perhaps things may be different. If he cares for you, and you for him, a little separation won't matter.... Until your father has inquired...."
"Mother," said Marjorie, "I can't——"
Mrs. Pope drew in the air sharply between her teeth, as if in agony.
"But, mother——Mother, I must let Mr. Trafford know that I'm not to see him. I can't suddenly cease.... If I could see him once——"
"Don't!" said Mrs. Pope, in a hollow voice.
Marjorie began weeping. "He'd not understand," she said. "If I might just speak to him!"
"Not alone, Marjorie."