“No; I had no need to do that, I had fully resolved when I spoke yesterday. Dr. Mulbridge, why didn’t you spare me this? It’s unkind of you to insist, after what I said. You know that I must hate to repeat it. I do value you so highly in some ways that I blame you for obliging me to hurt you—if it does hurt—by telling you again that I don’t love you.”
He drew in a long breath, and set his teeth hard upon his lip. “You may depend upon its hurting,” he said, “but I was glad to risk the pain, whatever it was, for the chance of getting you to reconsider. I presume I’m not the conventional wooer. I’m too old for it, and I’m too blunt and plain a man. I’ve been thirty-five years making up my mind to ask you to marry me. You’re the first woman, and you shall be the last. You couldn’t suppose I was going to give you up for one no?”
“You had better.”
“Not for twenty! I can understand very well how you never thought of me in this way; but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t. Come, it’s a matter that we can reason about, like anything else.”
“No. I told you, it’s something we can’t reason about. Or yes, it is. I will reason with you. You say that you love me?”
“Yes.”
“If you didn’t love me, you wouldn’t ask me to marry you?”
“No.”
“Then how can you expect me to marry you without loving you?”
“I don’t. All that I ask is that you won’t refuse me. I know that you can love me.”