"I meant no insult," she replies, apologetically: "I only meant to say what is true—that she is a suitable match for you—that she is your equal."
"Is she?" he retorts ironically. "You are very good, I'm sure; I ask for bread, and you give me a stone. For God's sake, Essie, if you will have nothing to say to me yourself, at least spare me the degradation of listening to your kind and disinterested plans for my welfare!"
Under this severe snub, Miss Craven remains silent.
"Is it," he continues, presently, his indignation being a little cooled, "the mere fact of my being well-off that damns me in your eyes? If so, I think I may plead 'not guilty,' seeing that this oppressive wealth of mine lies on the other side of Sir Thomas's death—an event probably, at least, as distant as the millennium."
She gazes out (not seeing it the while) at the driving rain, while a troubled look flits over her small grave face; but she says neither "Yea" nor "Nay."
"When I am asking you to give me your whole sweet life," he cries, impulsively, snatching one of her little cold hands, "are you so ungenerous as to wish me to have absolutely nothing to offer you in return?"
Still silence.
"Essie!" he says, drawing her nearer to him, and looking resolutely down into her timid reluctant eyes, "I don't ask you to have pity upon me—that is a puling, cowardly way of making love, I always think; if the only road to a woman's heart lies through her compassion, I had rather never get there at all—but I ask you to pity yourself. To be my wife, ill-tempered and jealous as I, no doubt, should often be, would be distinctly a better fate than to be old Blessington's drudge. Child! have you no pity for yourself?"
"None whatever," she answers, with emotion. "I am not in the least sorry for myself; I richly deserve everything that is come to me. As long as I am unhappy myself, I can better bear the recollection of my vile conduct to the best and loyalest lover ever any woman had; if I began to be happy, I think my remorse would kill me."
He drops her hand suddenly, with a gesture of anger.