"How can I take you with me?" he cried brutally, losing every vestige of tenderness for this distressful vixen. "Don't you understand that it's impossible—unless I marry you?" he concluded contemptuously.
Mary Ann's sobs ceased for a moment.
"Can't you marry me, then?" she said plaintively.
"You know it is impossible," he replied curtly.
"Why is it impossible?" she breathed.
"Because——" He saw her sobs were on the point of breaking out, and had not the courage to hear them afresh. He dared not wound her further by telling her straight out that, with all her money, she was ridiculously unfit to bear his name—that it was already a condescension for him to have offered her his companionship on any terms.
He resolved to temporise again.
"Go downstairs now, there's a good girl; and I'll tell you in the morning. I'll think it over. Go to bed early and have a long, nice sleep—missus will let you—now. It isn't Monday yet; we have plenty of time to talk it over."
She looked up at him with large, appealing eyes, uncertain, but calming down.
"Do, now, there's a dear." He stroked her wet cheek soothingly.