"And, perhaps you think, one I should not have spoken. It is always in my heart, Mary."
"Then it ought not to be."
"I see," he said. "You have been hearing tales about me."
"I have heard one tale. I presume it to be a true one. And I--I--" her lips were trembling grievously--"I wish you both happiness with all my heart."
Mr. Blake-Gordon pushed his chair back and began to pace the room restlessly. At that moment a servant came in with a message to him from her mistress. He merely nodded a reply, and the girl went away again.
"Do you know what it has all been for me, Mary?" he asked, halting before her, his brow flushed, his lips just as much agitated as hers. "Do you guess what it is? Every ray of sunshine went out of my life with you."
"At the time you--you may have thought that," she tremblingly answered. "But why recall it? The sun has surely begun to shine for you again."
"Never in this world. Never will it shine as it did then."
"Nay, but that, in the face of facts, is scarcely credible," she rejoined, striving to get up as much calmness, and to speak as quietly, as though Mr. Blake-Gordon had never been more to her than an acquaintance or friend; nerving herself to answer him now as such. "You are, I believe, about to"--a cough took her just there, and she suddenly put her hand to her throat--"marry Agatha."
"It is true. At least, partially true."