There came a light like the reflection of a sudden flame over a face which she at least thought to be a faded face. She had never at her youngest and fairest received such a compliment, and how it could have come from a plain man who had so little appearance of any poetry about him was bewildering. It was indeed difficult to resume the middle-aged matter-of-fact tone after such an unexpected break.
“I am forty-two,” she said, “and I have not been without experiences in my life. I want you to know what my past has been, before—”
“Whatever you please to tell me,” he said with an air of deep respect—“but I must say it is not necessary. I am quite satisfied; your experiences may have been painful—the world isn’t over good to people like you. If you will give me your companionship for the rest of our lives, that is enough for me, and far more than I can ever deserve. I have had my experiences too—”
“I must tell you, however, my story,” she said. Women, especially those who have lived in the virginal age for so long, are very conscientious in these matters. They have a much greater respect for love than ordinary people, and think it dishonourable to keep back the knowledge from a future husband of how they have been affected in this way during their past. The love that may have touched them years before they had even heard his name, seems to their over delicacy as if it must be a drawback to them in his eyes—a really guilty secret of which a clean breast must be made before the new and real history is allowed to begin.
“I was,” she said with a little hesitation, “engaged to be married at the usual age. It is a long time ago. My father had not met with any misfortunes then. We were living at home. That makes so great a difference in every way. We were of course well known people, friendly with everybody; everything about us was well known. You know in a county people are acquainted with everything about each other—you can’t conceal it when anything happens to you, even if you wished to conceal it.”
“I never had anything to do with a county,” he said, with a sort of respectful acquiescence, interested but not curious—“but I can understand what you mean.”
“Well: when my father speculated and was so unfortunate (it was really more for my sake than for any other reason that he speculated—and then he was drawn on) it became impossible to carry my engagement out. The gentleman I was engaged to, was not very well off then. We had to think what was best for both of us. We agreed that it would be best to break it off. I should only have been a sort of millstone round his neck. People might have expected him to help papa. And his own means were quite limited then. He had not been supposed a good match for me in my wealthy days—and when the tables were turned in this way, we both thought it was better to part.”
“And did the fellow let you go—did he give you up? The wretched cad!” cried James Rowland, adding this violent expression of opinion under his breath.
“You must not speak so, Mr. Rowland; it was a mutual agreement. We both, I need hardly say, felt it very much. I—for a long time. Indeed, it has had an influence upon all my life. Don’t think I have regretted it,” she said eagerly, “for if we had not done it by mutual agreement as we did, with a sense of the necessity—we should have been forced to do it. For as it turned out, I could not have left my father. He was very much shattered. It cost him a great deal to give up his home. He had been born there, and all his people before him.”
“And you, I suppose, were born there too, and all your people before you?”