“I saw my father lyin’ dead i’ this room. Lyin’ there on the bed. They fetched it in. Oh, my God! my God!” She turned away from him. “Go! Go!” she cried, facing round again, “and I’ll think of your goodness, that I will; but I can’t take ye, George, so let me be.”
“Mary,” he persisted, “will you let me come back? Maybe, as time gets on, you’d forget a bit.”
He had come to her meaning to act the part of a lover conscientiously, but he was finding little need for acting; no woman he had ever seen appealed to him as this one did. He stood in the middle of the room unwilling to go. She came up to him, and laying her fingers upon his arm, urged him towards the door. When they reached the lintel, he took hold of her hand. “Let me come again,” he begged, “let me come back. Do, Mary, do.”
“No, no,” she exclaimed, drawing it away, “’tis no manner o’ use. Good-bye; go now, good-bye.”
George Williams was but human, and his heart was bounding within him. “All right,” he said, thickly, “I’ll be off then. But oh, Mary, give me one kiss before I go!” and, in his earnestness, he made as though he would draw her towards him.
She sprang back, blushing scarlet to the roots of her hair. “Ah!” she cried, “an’ I thought you were different!”
Before he had realized what had happened she had shut the door, and he heard the bolt shoot into its place. He stood in the road, mortified, ashamed, furious with himself. But as he turned to make his way home between the leafless hedges, he knew that he loved her.
[CHAPTER XVII
THE SHEEP-STEALERS PART COMPANY]
HE hurried along with the tread of a man who hopes to lose a remembrance in the tumult of his going. He had failed in every way; failed in respect to the creature whom he had resolved so fixedly to protect, and beside whom every other worldly object had all at once become unimportant. It seemed that he was always to show himself in a different light to the one which illumined his heart. His evil luck willed it so, apparently. He loved truth, and yet he lay bound in a tangle of dishonesty; he loved independence, and he was in the hollow of a rogue’s hand; he loved to be at peace with all men, and his companion’s daily aim was to rouse his temper; and lastly, he loved Mary Vaughan, and by his own folly he had caused her to shut her door in his face.