“So shall not I.”
“Sir, you are confident, and are likely to meet with confidence betrayed. You must accept my answer as final, and let us have an end of this fruitless and embarrassing conversation. I can never marry you.”
“There is but one circumstance to prevent it.”
“Then believe that circumstance exists.”
“You love another?”
“I do not.”
The young man laughed joyously, but no corresponding smile disturbed the set lips of the girl. He should have seen how painful this dialogue had been to her, but with a lover’s selfishness he had eyes for nothing but the object of pursuit; ears for nothing but the words he hoped to compel her to say; pursuing her thus from one point of refuge to another, each abandoned in turn, with no thought but that of capture. Her face was white with dread, a whiteness made the more striking by the jet framing of her hair. Never during the conference had she looked at him since the first direct gaze when she took the resolution to have this disturbing business put at rest forever. The horses walked on unguided, her eyes on the road immediately before her. When he accused her of loving another she glanced up at him for one brief moment, and answered before she thought, wishing her reply recalled as soon as it was uttered, for if she had agreed with him, he himself had said it was at an end. Bitterly did she regret her heedless destruction of the barrier which would have separated them. Now she must erect another, more terrible, more complete, be the consequences what they may.
“Sir, you laugh. I am glad your heart is light, for mine is heavy enough. If I loved another, ’t were a small matter, for the man were not likely so estimable in a woman’s eyes as you are. As I have said, you drive me toward confession, and here is one bold enough for a maiden to make. I admit you please me well, and if I had loved another—a woman’s affection is fickle—you were like to benefit by its transference. But there is an obstacle between us more serious than the one you proclaimed sufficient. Take that as truth, and ask me no more.”
“I must be the judge of the obstacle. What is it?”
“I dare not tell you.”