“This is fearfully hard to bear,” he said, at last. “I thought I was prepared for it, but—in spite of myself, I suppose—I had cherished hopes that recently your opinion of me had begun to soften. Miss Western, has it never occurred to you as possible that you have misjudged me?”
Mary hesitated.
“Yes,” she said, at last. “I may own to you that—lately—I have tried to think if it was possible.”
“You have wished to find it possible?” said Mr Cheviott, eagerly.
“Sometimes,” said Mary.
“God bless you for that,” he exclaimed, “and—”
“No, do not say that,” she interrupted. “I have more often wished not to find it so, for I—I gave you every chance—I put it all so plainly to you that horrible day at Romary—no, it is impossible that I have done you injustice. Were I to begin to think so, I should feel that I was losing my judgment, my right estimate of things altogether. But I do not wish to continue thinking worse of you than you deserve—you may have learned to see things differently—is it that you were going to tell me? Heaven knows if your interference has done what can never be undone, or not; but, however this is, I do not want to refuse to hear that you have changed.”
Mr Cheviott’s face grew sterner and darker.
“I have not changed,” he said. “What I did was for the best, and I could not but do the same again in similar circumstances.”
“Then,” said Mary, hardening at once, “I really have nothing more to say or to hear. Please let me pass.”