‘To get married!’ Mary repeated with a start; and then she clasped his arm tight with both her hands, and looked up joyfully in his face. ‘Then you must have been fond of her after all,’ she cried. ‘It was not her money you were thinking of. Oh, Frank! don’t be angry. It made me so unhappy to think you were going to marry her for her money.’
‘Good heavens! this girl will drive me mad!’ cried Frank. ‘What nonsense are you thinking of now? Money! She has not a penny, and you never heard of her in your life.’
‘It is not Nelly Rich then?’ said Mary, faltering and withdrawing the clasping hands from his arm.
‘Nelly Rich! that was all your own invention, and my mother’s,’ said Frank,—‘not mine. I said she would have suited Laurie. If you chose to make up a story, that was not my fault.’
There was a pause after this, for Mary remembered but too distinctly the conversation about Nelly, and could not acknowledge that the story was of her invention. But she could hold her tongue, and did so steadily, making no remark, which Frank felt was as great an injury to him as if she had enlarged on the subject. He went along under the trees, quickening his pace in his agitation, without much thought of Mary, who had to change her steps two or three times to keep up with him.
‘I suppose you have no further curiosity?’ he said at length; ‘you don’t want to know who it really is.’
‘Yes, Frank,—when you will tell me,’ said Mary, holding her ground.
‘You are very provoking,’ said her cousin;—‘if it were not that I had such need of you! You should not aggravate a poor fellow that throws himself as it were on your assistance;—I will tell you who it is whether you care to hear or no. It is Alice Severn,—Mrs. Severn’s daughter, who was Laurie’s great friend.’
‘Laurie again!’ said Mary, amazed,—‘Mrs. Severn! Are we never to have an end of Laurie’s friends? You told me she had no daughters. You said something about a little girl. Ah, Frank! I am afraid it is some widow coquette that first made a victim of Laurie and now has done the same to you. I knew there was something mysterious about his going away.’
‘I wish you would talk of things you understand,’ said Frank, indignantly. ‘Alice is only sixteen. She is, I believe, the purest, simplest creature that ever lived. As for Laurie, she was a child to him;—he treated her like a child.’