'This is a queer state of things,' said George. 'Dashed if, in all my experience of life and of girls, I came across anything similar, and I have seen something. I have not spent all my days in Mersea. I've been to the West Indies. I've seen white girls, and yellow girls, and brown girls, and copper-coloured girls, and black ones—black as rotted seaweed. I have—they are all much of a muchness, but this beats my experience. You are not like others.'
'So he says; he and I are alone in the world, and alone can understand one another. Do you understand me, George?'
'I'm blessed if I do.'
She was silent. She was very unhappy. She did not like his tone: there was an insincerity, a priggishness about it which jarred with her reality and depth of feeling. But she could not analyse what offended her. She thought he was angry with her, and had assumed a taunting air to cover his mortification.
She drew the medal from her bosom.
'George! dear, dear George!' she said vehemently, 'take the pledge again. I give it you with my whole heart once more. I believe it saved you once, it may save you again. At all events, it is a token to you that my heart is the same, that I care for and love none but you in the whole wide world.'
He took it and suspended it round his neck.
'I will keep it for your sake,' he said; 'you may be sure it will be treasured by me.'
'Keep it better than you did before.'
'Certainly I will. I shall value it inexpressibly.'