"I was miserable and lonely, and until I met you everything seemed to have gone to pieces. It will never happen again, darling, really it won't. You know that, don't you? surely you know it." He was fighting, not only for her love, but for his whole future, his position in society, the respect of his own class. If he lost her, he felt he would lose everything else which a Grierson holds dear. He would never have the heart to make another try.
"I don't know," she sighed at last. "I had such faith in you, and this has been such an awful shock. Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy, I could never have believed it."
Even in his misery, it struck him that she had believed it, very readily, and a hint of anger came into his bearing. After all, his promise of reformation, or rather the fact that he had already reformed, should have some weight with her. But she was judging him by the past, in which she had had no part. Still, he spoke gently, pleadingly.
"Vera, dear, you must forgive me. It will never happen again now that I have you to look after me. You will keep me straight."
But he struck the wrong chord, and she looked up almost indignantly. "You ought to be manly enough to keep straight by yourself, you ought never to have sunk as you have done. There can be no excuse for it, none whatever."
"And no forgiveness?" he asked very quietly. She covered her face with her hands again. "Oh, I don't know, I don't know. Everything seems so dreadful, and I shall be afraid to trust you. Go away now, and let me think it over quietly."
"Very well. I will come back after dinner. Meet me down by the summer-house." There was something masterful in his tone, and for a moment she felt inclined to obey; then her sense of injury came to her aid, and she shook her head.
"No, to-morrow morning at the earliest. I cannot decide so quickly."