'Respect and gratitude are but cold words,' he said.
'Let me add with greater love. Your Lordship is the only man in the world whom she has ever loved or could love. That also, believe me, is most true.'
'Why, then——' He held out his hand.
'Nay, my Lord. Jenny loves you so well that nothing would induce her to accept the honour of your proposal.'
'How? Loves me so well?'
'Jenny bids me tell you that the time would come when your children would ask who was their mother, and who were her mother's friends. They would learn her history, I need not remind you of her history. You know it all. Jenny loves you too well to bring shame and discredit on a noble House. Your children, she says, must have a mother worthy of yourself.'
'There is no more worthy woman in the world than Jenny!'
'Their mother must have an unblemished name, my Lord, worthy of your own. She knows you to be so good and loyal that you could never reproach her with the past. But it belongs to her. And, my Lord, it must not belong to you.'
'It must not; it shall not,' Jenny repeated through her tears.
'Is this your answer, Jenny? Oh! Jenny, will you cast me off for such a scruple?'