“Dear Duke, did it never strike you as possible that I might marry again?”
“Never! Never! You belong to Wiggins and me—and father. Have you forgotten father?”
“No, sonny, no. I have not forgotten.”
“Oh, mother, say it isn’t true, say it isn’t true, or I shall die!”
Mary folded the boy closer in her arms. “It is not true, dear. Mr. Methven has not even asked me to marry him.”
As she spoke she remembered her own words as she looked into the glass the night before. Her face grew very sad.
“But if he did ask you, mother, you would say no? You would say no?”
The Duke’s voice, husky with long crying, was very pathetic.
Mary leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. She held her boy very close, and her breath came quickly.
“I don’t think he will ask me, dear, but if he does, I must say no, for his sake!”