"Partially?"
"For Heaven's sake, Mary, don't speak to me in that coldly indifferent tone!" he passionately broke in. "I cannot bear it from you."
"How would you have me speak?" she asked, rapidly regaining her self-possession; and her tone was certainly kind, rather than cold, though her words were redolent of calm reasoning. "The past is past, you know, and circumstances have entirely changed. It will be better to meet them as such: to regard them as they are."
"Yes, they are changed," he answered bitterly. "You have made yourself into a lay-nun----"
"Nay, not that," she interrupted with a smile.
"A Sister of Charity, then"--pointing to her grey dress. "And I, as the world says, am to espouse Agatha Mountsorrel."
"But surely that is true."
"It is true in so far as that I have asked her to be my wife: That I should live to say that to you of another woman, Mary! She has accepted me. But, as to the marriage, I hope it will not take place yet awhile. I do not press for it."
"You shall both have my best and truest prayers for your happiness," rejoined Mary, her voice again slightly trembling. "Agatha will make you a good wife. The world calls her haughty; but she will not be haughty to her husband."
"How coolly you can contemplate it!" he cried, in reproach and pain.