“I will not urge you, Eve, but”—
“You need not. I wish to tell you, for I—a governess may not always stand alone. She is a woman, after all.”
“Yes,” I said, “thank God!”
“They—they would”— She began to laugh, a nervous laugh and with no mirth in it,—“they would marry me, Adam.”
“What!” I cried. “They would—who would marry you? Not old Goodwin!”
“No,” she said; and laughed the more, and seemed really merry at it. “Now I feel better. Not old Goodwin. He has a wife.”
I was puzzled.
“Who, then, Eve? Who would marry you? I doubt not there are many who would, for I know”—
“It is old Goodwin’s wife,” she said, breaking me off short, and just in time.
Then she stood straight. “Now, Adam,” she went on, “I am not so nervous as I was, but I may laugh or I may cry with no reason. I will sit upon the bank and tell you, for truly I am in straits. And do you bear with me, for you are honest, and I may trust you. And indeed I know no other I may trust—but one.”