‘Because,’ she said firmly, ‘my position beneath your mother’s roof, in its very lowliness, ought to have been my protection from insult, which’——
‘Insult!’ flashed out Lord Harrogate, reddening too, and breaking almost roughly in on the girl’s half-uttered speech. ‘Can you deem that I mean to insult you when I tell you of my love—that I speak insolently, Miss Gray, when I ask you to be my wife?’
Ethel quivered from head to foot as her half-incredulous ears drank in the words. ‘You meant—that is’—— she faltered out feebly.
‘I meant this,’ said Lord Harrogate earnestly. ‘Miss Gray—Ethel, darling, I have learned during the time that I have known you, to love you with a true and honest love. I am a clumsy wooer, I daresay, but surely you cannot have deemed that I had any other thought than that of asking you, for weal and woe, to share my fortunes?’
He tried to take her hand; but she eluded his grasp, and covering her face, sobbed aloud.
‘Come, Ethel, come, my love! Let it be mine to dry those tears!’ said the young man, passing his arm round her waist; but gently and firmly she released herself.
‘You have made me very happy and very miserable all at once, my lord,’ she said, turning round and facing him; ‘but believe me, there must be no more of this. I thank you from my heart for the very great compliment of your preference for a girl so humbly born, without fortune or kindred. But I am your sister’s governess; and it shall never be said that Ethel Gray brought disunion and sorrow upon the noble family that had received her with so kindly a welcome. I have my own ideas of right and wrong, Lord Harrogate, and I know that I should be mean and base, even in my own eyes, were I to avail myself of—your great goodness.’
He was taken by surprise. He had made up his mind, and reckoned the difficulties of the step which he proposed to take. That he would meet with some opposition on the part of his family, he was of course aware. It might take much time and much persuasion to bring his parents, and especially the Countess, to consent to a match so little calculated to advance his worldly prospects. But he was no shallow boy to cry for his toy, and then forget the bauble that had been withheld from him. His offer of marriage would no doubt render Ethel’s position at High Tor for a time untenable. He had thought the matter over. There were relatives of the De Veres who, without being partisans of the match, would willingly offer a temporary home to such a girl as Ethel Gray, while his mother and Lady Gladys were in process of being converted to see the matter as he saw it.
Ethel’s unlooked-for opposition disconcerted all these projects. She was very grateful, gentle, and almost submissive in her bearing; but she was as steadfast as adamant on the point that it behoved her to return a respectful refusal to Lord Harrogate’s proposals.
‘Do not tempt me,’ she said more than once; ‘do not urge me to forfeit my self-respect, or be false to those who have put trust in me. I am no fit match for the future master of High Tor, the future Earl of Wolverhampton. Would the kind Countess have received me here, would Lady Maud have given me her friendship, had they dreamed of this?’