He was taking everything for granted, and Magdalen gasped for breath as she put up both hands to thrust him aside, for she felt as if she were smothering with him so near to her.
“Sit down, Frank,” she said, “sit there by the window,” and she pointed to a seat so far from her that more kisses were out of the question.
Something in her tone startled him, and he sat where she bade him sit and then listened breathlessly while she went over the whole ground carefully, and at last, as gently as possible, for she would not unnecessarily wound him, told him she could not be his wife.
“I decided that before I knew Roger had the will,” she said, “and I sent for you to tell you so on that dreadful day when so much happened here. I like you, Frank, and I know you have been very kind to me, but I cannot be your wife; I do not love you well enough for that.”
It was in vain that Frank begged her to consider, to take time to think. She surely did not know what she was doing when she refused him; and he thought of Bell Burleigh and all the flattery he had received in Springfield, and wished Magdalen could know how highly some people esteemed him.
Magdalen understood him in part, and smiled a little derisively as she replied: “I know well what I am doing, Frank; I am refusing one who, the world would say, was far above me,—a poor girl, with neither home, nor friends, nor name.”
“What, then, do you propose to do?” Frank asked, “if, as you say, you are without home or friends.”
“I don’t know. Oh, I don’t know. Some way will be provided,” Magdalen answered sadly, her heart going out in a longing cry after Roger.
As if divining the thought, and feeling jealous and angry on account of it, Frank continued:
“You surely would not go to Schodick now. Even your love for Roger would not allow you to do so unmaidenly a thing as that.”