Just for one single moment, in her heart's lively anguish, the temptation assailed her to tell him what it really was to her, and how deeply she loved him still. She threw it behind her, a faint smile parting her lips.
"William, you know well that what I say is all I can say. I am wedded to the life I have chosen; you will soon be wedded actually to another than me. Nothing remains for us in common: save the satisfaction of experiencing good wishes for the welfare of the other."
"It is not love, or any feeling akin to it, that has caused me to address Agatha Mountsorrel----" he was beginning; but she interrupted him with decision.
"I would rather not hear this. It is not right of you to say it."
"I will say it. Mary, be still. It is but a word or two; and I will have my way in this. It is in obedience to my father that I have addressed Miss Mountsorrel. Since the moment when you and I parted, he has never ceased to urge her upon me, to throw us together in every possible way. I resisted for a long while; but my nature is weakly yielding--as you have cause to know--and at length I was badgered into it. Forgive the word, Mary. Badgered by Sir Richard, until I went to her and said, Will you be my wife? The world had set the rumour running long before that; but the world was in haste. And now that I have told you so much, I am thankful. I meant to make the opportunity of telling you had one not offered: for the worst pain of all, to me, would be, that you should fancy I could love another. The hearing that I have engaged myself again in this indecent haste--your hearing it--is enough shame for me."
The handsome chariot of the Master of Greylands, its fine horses prancing and curvetting, passed the window and drew up at the house. Mary rose.
"I hope with all my heart that you will love her as you once loved. me," she said to him in a half whisper, as she rang the bell and caught up her bonnet. "To know that, William, will make my own life somewhat less lonely."
"Did you ever care for me?" broke from him.
"Yes. But the past is past."
He stood in silence while she tied on her grey bonnet, watching her slender fingers as they trembled with the silk strings. A servant appeared in answer to the ring. Mary was drawing on her gloves.