“Ninsy, Ninsy!” cried the youth pathetically, “don’t you understand what I mean? I can’t bear having to say these things, but you force me to, when you talk like that. The doctor meant that it would be wrong for you to have children, and he took it for granted that you’d never find anyone ready to live with you as I’d live with you. It would only be a marriage in name. I mean it would only be a marriage in name in regard to children. It would be a real marriage to me, it would be heaven to me, to live side by side with you, and no one able any more to come between us! I can’t realize such happiness. It makes me feel dizzy even to think of it!”
Ninsy unclasped her hands, and gently repulsing him, remained buried in deep thought. Standing erect above them, like a sentry upon a palisade, James Andersen stared gloomily down upon this little drama. In some strange way,—perhaps because of some sudden recurrence of his mental trouble,—he seemed quite unconscious of anything dishonourable or base in thus withholding from these two people the knowledge that he was overhearing them.
“I’ll take care of you to the end of my life!” the young man repeated. “I’m doing quite well now with my work. You’ll be able to have all you want. You’ll be better off than you are here, and you know perfectly well that as soon as your father’s free he’ll marry that friend of his in Yeoborough. I saw him with her last Sunday. I’m sure it’s only for your sake that he stays single. She’s got three children, and that’s what holds him back—that, and the thought that you two mightn’t get on together. You’d be doing your father a kindness if you said yes to me, Ninsy. Please, please, my darling, say it, and make me grateful to you forever!”
“I can’t say it,—Philip, dear, I can’t, I can’t”; murmured the girl, in a voice so low that the sentinel above them could only just catch her words. “I do care for you, and I do value your goodness to me, but I can’t say the words, Philip. Something seems to stop me, something in my throat.”
It was not to her throat however, that the agitated Ninsy raised her thin hands. As she pressed them against her breast a look of tragic sorrow came into her face. Philip regarded her wistfully.
“You’re thinking you don’t love me, dear,—and never can love me. I know that, well enough! I know you don’t love me as I love you. But what does that matter? I’ve known that, all the time. The thing is, you won’t find anyone who loves you as I do,—ready to live with you as I’ve said I will, ready to nurse you and look after you. Other people’s love will be always asking and demanding from you. Mine—oh, it’s true, my darling, it’s true!—mine only wants to give up everything to make you happy.”
Ninsy was evidently more than a little moved by the boy’s appeal. There was a ring of passionate sincerity in his tone which went straight to her heart. She bent down and covered her face with her hands. When at length she lifted up her head and answered him, there were tears on her cheeks, and the watchful listener above them did not miss the quiver in her tone.
“I’m sorry, Philip boy, more sorry than I can say, that I can’t be nicer to you, that I can’t show my gratitude to you, in the way you wish. But though I do care for you, and—and value your dear love—something stops me, something makes it impossible that this should happen.”
“I believe it’s because you love that fellow Andersen!” cried the excited youth, leaping to his feet in his agitation.
In making this movement, the figure of the stone-carver, silhouetted with terrible distinctness against the sky-line, became visible to him. Instinctively he uttered a cry of surprise and anger.