Cicely was silent.
“I wish,” she said in a tone of distress, “I wish you had not thought of it.”
“You mean that you cannot entertain the idea of it—you dislike me personally?” he said.
“Dislike,” she repeated; “no, oh! no, but—”
“But you don’t like me,” he suggested with a faint smile. “It is much better to be honest, Miss Methvyn. Not that I expected, at the best, much. I know something of your past sufferings—I know you have known feelings in comparison with which the best I could hope for must be poor and small. Forgive me for alluding to it,” he added hastily. “You will believe me it was unintentionally I did so.” For he fancied that a look of pain had crept over her face as he spoke. He was mistaken.
“I don’t mind your alluding to it at all,” she said frankly. “No one could have been kinder and more considerate to me than you were then. It is all completely, utterly, past and gone. Lately, quite lately, I have come to feel perfectly satisfied of its having been best for me as it was. It is no remembrance of that kind, it is nothing that has to do with my old feeling for my cousin that makes it”—“impossible” she added after an instant’s hesitation, “for me to do anything but thank you for what you have said just now.”
“Impossible?” he repeated.
“Yes, I fear so,” said Cicely. “I wish I could feel it were not so. I own to you I wish I dared think it could be otherwise, but I cannot. I am very, very lonely. Your friendship is a temptation to me. But it would not satisfy me. I know myself better than I once did; if I consented now to what you propose, I should only be storing up misery for both you and me. As it is, I do not think I need be afraid of paining you by my decision, for I am sure you have thought more of me than of yourself in the matter. Your life will be more consistent and harmonious without me. Will it not?”
“Possibly it may be so,” he replied. But as he said the words he grew very pale.
“You will let me thank you,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.