“The matter,” he replied, “lies in a few words, Kitty. I love you, and I may not ask you to be my wife.”
I was silent for a while. He stood before me, his face bent over mine.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because I have been a fool—nay, worse than a fool, a knave; because I am tied by bonds which I cannot break: and I am unworthy of so much goodness and virtue.”
“Oh!” I cried, “you know not. How can you know? I am none of the things which you imagine in me. I am a poor and weak girl; if you knew me you would surely think so too. I cannot bear that you should think me other than what I am.”
“Why, my angel, your very modesty and your tears are the proof that you are all I think, and more.”
“No,” I cried. “If I told you all: if I could lay bare my very soul to you, I think that you could”—I was going to add, “love me no longer,” but I caught myself up in time—“that you could no longer think of me as better, but rather as worse, than other girls.”
“You know,” he said, “that I love you, Kitty. You have known that for some time—have you not?”
“Yes, my lord,” I replied humbly; “I have known it, and have felt my own unworthiness. Oh, so unworthy, so unworthy am I that I have wept tears of shame.”
“Nay—nay,” he said. “It is I who am unworthy. My dear, there is nothing you could tell me which would make me love you less.”