"I don't want to speak of these things to any one," Mary answered.
"I have no right to urge you," he said; "but you will oblige me very much by speaking to him once, at least, upon the subject. I cannot tell you the weight it added to my self-reproach to find him ignorant of the wrongs you have suffered, knowing as I do the entire confidence you repose in him personally. You have been very loyal to me, Mary; I shall never forget it."
"Of course, I told him nothing concerning any one but myself."
"I have another favor to ask, which I should not ask if you were like other women."
"What is it?"
He took a note from his desk, and gave it to her unfolded. "After reading that, I beg you to give it to Lady Sackvil."
She flushed, and a slight trembling passed over her. Then she folded the note and put it into her pocket. "I will give it to her without reading it. I trust you."
Nicholas looked at her with an expression of reverence in his face. "I will earn the right to tell you how deeply I honor you," he said. "Any thing I could say now would appear like a new phase of moral weakness; but I will earn the right to speak."
As Mary met his eyes, fixed upon her with a look of reverential tenderness, her heart cried out for him. She longed to throw herself upon his breast; to urge him to put off this dreadful parting, and treat the wretched delusion he had yielded to as a dream. But something unanswerable within her soul warned her to let him leave her, that his resolutions might grow strong in solitude; that he might learn by aching experience the worth of the love and sympathy he had slighted. Therefore, she only said, "All will be well; I know it, I feel it." And he answered, "I accept your words as a prophecy, and thank God for them. One favor still I must ask. Mary, you will write to me?"
"Constantly."