“I cannot, I cannot, Mr. Maybold—I cannot! Don’t ask me!” she said.
“Don’t answer in a hurry!” he entreated. “And do listen to me. This is no sudden feeling on my part. I have loved you for more than six months! Perhaps my late interest in teaching the children here has not been so single-minded as it seemed. You will understand my motive—like me better, perhaps, for honestly telling you that I have struggled against my emotion continually, because I have thought that it was not well for me to love you! But I resolved to struggle no longer; I have examined the feeling; and the love I bear you is as genuine as that I could bear any woman! I see your great charm; I respect your natural talents, and the refinement they have brought into your nature—they are quite enough, and more than enough for me! They are equal to anything ever required of the mistress of a quiet parsonage-house—the place in which I shall pass my days, wherever it may be situated. O Fancy, I have watched you, criticized you even severely, brought my feelings to the light of judgment, and still have found them rational, and such as any man might have expected to be inspired with by a woman like you! So there is nothing hurried, secret, or untoward in my desire to do this. Fancy, will you marry me?”
No answer was returned.
“Don’t refuse; don’t,” he implored. “It would be foolish of you—I mean cruel! Of course we would not live here, Fancy. I have had for a long time the offer of an exchange of livings with a friend in Yorkshire, but I have hitherto refused on account of my mother. There we would go. Your musical powers shall be still further developed; you shall have whatever pianoforte you like; you shall have anything, Fancy, anything to make you happy—pony-carriage, flowers, birds, pleasant society; yes, you have enough in you for any society, after a few months of travel with me! Will you, Fancy, marry me?”
Another pause ensued, varied only by the surging of the rain against the window-panes, and then Fancy spoke, in a faint and broken voice.
“Yes, I will,” she said.
“God bless you, my own!” He advanced quickly, and put his arm out to embrace her. She drew back hastily. “No no, not now!” she said in an agitated whisper. “There are things;—but the temptation is, O, too strong, and I can’t resist it; I can’t tell you now, but I must tell you! Don’t, please, don’t come near me now! I want to think, I can scarcely get myself used to the idea of what I have promised yet.” The next minute she turned to a desk, buried her face in her hands, and burst into a hysterical fit of weeping. “O, leave me to myself!” she sobbed; “leave me! O, leave me!”
“Don’t be distressed; don’t, dearest!” It was with visible difficulty that he restrained himself from approaching her. “You shall tell me at your leisure what it is that grieves you so; I am happy—beyond all measure happy!—at having your simple promise.”
“And do go and leave me now!”
“But I must not, in justice to you, leave for a minute, until you are yourself again.”