Her face turned crimson; her lips parted with emotion; she rose up to interrupt him in a sort of terror.
“Pray do not continue, Mr. St. George. If—if I understand you rightly, that you—that you——”
“That I would be your loving husband, Ellin; that I would shelter you from all ill until death us do part. Yes, it is nothing less than that.”
“Then you must please never to speak of such a thing again; never to think of it. Oh, do not let me find that I have been mistaking you all this time,” she added in uncontrollable agitation: “that while I have ever welcomed you as my friend—and his—you have been swayed by another motive!”
He did not like the agitation; he did not like the words; and he bit his lips, striving for calmness.
“This is very hard, Ellin.”
“Let us understand each other once for all,” she said—“and oh, I am so sorry that there’s need to say it. What you have hinted at is impossible. Impossible: please not to mistake me. You have been my very kind friend, and I value you; and, if you will, we can go on still on the same pleasant terms, caring for one another in friendship. There can be nothing more.”
“Tell me one thing,” he said: “we had better, as you intimate, understand each other fully. Can it be that your hopes are still fixed upon William Brook?”
“Yes,” she answered in a low tone, as she turned her face away. “I hope he will come home yet, and that—that matters may be smoothed for us with papa. Whilst that hope remains it is simply treason to talk to me as you would have done,” she concluded with a spurt of anger.
“Ellin,” called out Aunt Hester, putting her head out beyond the glass-doors, “the sun has set; you had better come in.”