"Well, it's about her. She and my father live together like man and wife, though they ain't married; and the Vicar must have known that these years, and yet now he makes it an excuse for getting rid of me."
"I always thought she was a bad woman," said Mary; "but you are wrong about my father. He never knew it till now I am certain; and of course, you know, he naturally won't have me go and live in the house with a bad woman."
"Does he think then, or do you think," replied George, with virtuous indignation, "that I would have thought of taking you there? No, I'd sooner have taken you to America!"
"Well, so I believe, George."
"This won't make any difference in you, Mary? No, I needn't ask it, you wouldn't have come here to meet me to-night if that had been the case."
"It ought to make a difference, George," she replied; "I am afraid I oughtn't to come out here and see you, when my father don't approve of it."
"But you will come, my little darling, for all that;" he said. "Not here though—the devil only knows who may be loitering round here. Half a dozen pair of lovers a night perhaps—no, meet me up in the croft of a night. I am often in at Gosford's of an evening, and I can see your window from there, you put a candle in the right-hand corner when you want to see me, and I'll be down in a very few minutes. I shall come every evening and watch."
"Indeed," she said, "I won't do anything of the sort; at least, unless I have something very particular to say. Then, indeed, I might do such a thing. Now I must go home or they will be missing me."
"Stay a minute, Mary," said he; "you just listen to me. They will, some of them, be trying to take my character away. You won't throw me off without hearing my defence, dear Mary, I know you won't. Let me hear what lies they tell of me, and don't you condemn me unheard because I come from a bad house? Tell me that you'll give me a chance of clearing myself with you, my girl, and I'll go home in peace and wait."
What girl could resist the man she loved so truly, when he pleaded so well? With his arm about her waist, and his handsome face bent over her, lit up with what she took to be love. Not she, at all events. She drew the handsome face down towards her, and as she kissed him fervently, said: