"Not care for you!" cried Colville, thinking of his sufferings in the past fortnight.
"And I would have made any—any sacrifice for you. At least I wouldn't have made you show yourself a mean and grudging person if you had come to me for a little sympathy."
"O poor child!" he cried, and his heart ached with the sense that she really was nothing but an unhappy child. "I do sympathise with you, and I see how hard it is for you to manage with Mrs. Bowen's dislike for me. But you mustn't think of it. I dare say it will be different; I've no doubt we can get her to look at me in some brighter light. I—" He did not know what he should urge next; but he goaded his invention, and was able to declare that if they loved each other they needed not regard any one else. This flight, when accomplished, did not strike him as very original effect, and it was with a dull surprise that he saw it sufficed for her.
"No; no one!" she exclaimed, accepting the platitude as if it were now uttered for the first time. She dried her eyes and smiled. "I will tell Mrs. Bowen how you feel and what you've said, and I know she will appreciate your generosity."
"Yes," said Colville pensively; "there's nothing I won't propose doing for people."
She suddenly clung to him, and would not let him go. "Oh, what is the matter?" she moaned afresh. "I show out the worst that is in me, and only the worst. Do you think I shall always be so narrow-minded with you? I thought I loved you enough to be magnanimous. You are. It seemed to me that our lives together would be grand and large; and here I am, grovelling in the lowest selfishness! I am worrying and scolding you because you wish to please some one that has been as good as my own mother to me. Do you call that noble?"
Colville did not venture any reply to a demand evidently addressed to her own conscience.
But when she asked if he really thought he had better go away, he said, "Oh no; that was a mistake."
"Because, if you do, you shall—to punish me."
"My dearest girl, why should I wish to punish you?"