Miss Veronica made no reply. Then she said, very softly and timidly:
“My darling Marion, forgive me if I appear officious or intrusive. But, I am sure that, you know there is another home open to you, whose owner would think himself blessed beyond measure to welcome you to it. He has told me of his disappointment. Are you quite sure, my dear child, that there can never be any hope for him, that you can never bring yourself to think favourably of this?”
Marion looked up into her companion’s face (she was sitting on the ground at Veronica’s side), with a slight smile. She appeared perfectly composed, her colour did not vary in the least. Miss Temple was far more embarrassed than she.
“I am glad you have spoken of this, Miss Veronica,” said the girl, “for I wish very much to talk to you about it. I am in a great puzzle. The truth of it is, I have already, in a sense, come to think favourably of it; and yet, I fear, not so favourably—not, in short, in the way that it—that he—deserves to be thought of. I like him most thoroughly, and I like to know that he cares for me. I am weary, very weary of having no home, no nest of my own; and if I yielded to my inclination, I would run to Geoffrey and ask him to take care of me, and be good to me. And I believe I could be a good wife to him. But, dear Miss Veronica, is this enough? Is it not selfish of me so to take advantage or this good man’s great love for me, when I know, ah, how surely, that never can I give him the same in return? For,”—and here, at last, her pale face flushed and her voice sank,—“for I have known what it is to give the whole love of one’s being, one’s self, utterly and entirely to another. And this I could never do again.”
Veronica sighed again.
“My poor child!” was all she said.
But Marion urged her to say more.
“Tell me a little more, in the first place,” was her reply. “This other, whoever he may be, I do not wish to know, but tell me is it altogether and for ever over between you?”
“Altogether and for ever,” answered Marion firmly. “By this time he is the husband of another woman.”
“But you, you care for him still?” persisted Veronica, her own tender heart quivering at the thought of the pain this necessary probing of hers must he inflicting on Marion.