“Oh, Isaac, why prolong the pain?” she said. “You know I cannot go: to refuse is as painful to me as to you. Don’t you see that I have no alternative but to remain here?”
“No, I do not see it,” replied Mr. Sale, stoutly. “I think your mother could do without you. She is an active, bustling woman, hardly to be called middle-aged yet. It is not right that you should sacrifice yourself and your prospects in life. At least, it seems to me that it is not.”
Margaret’s hand was covering her face; the silent tears were dropping. To see him depart, leaving her behind, was a prospect intensely bitter. Her heart ached when she thought of it: but she saw no hope of its being otherwise.
“It is a week and a day since I told you that the promotion was at length offered me,” resumed Mr. Sale, “and we do not seem to be any nearer a decision than we were then. I have kept it to myself and said nothing about it abroad, waiting for you to speak to me, Margaret; and the Rector—to whom I at length spoke yesterday—is angry with me, and says I ought to have told him at once. In three days from this—on Thursday next—I must give an answer: accept the post, or throw it up.”
Margaret took her hand from her face. Mr. Sale could see how great was the conflict at work within her.
“There is nothing to wait for, Isaac. I wish there was. You must go by yourself, and leave me.”
“I have told you that I will not. If you stay here, I stay.”
“Oh, pray don’t do that! It would be so intense a disappointment to you to give it up.”
“The greatest disappointment I have ever had in life,” he answered. “You must go with me.”