Mr Grey, I have not told you that.”
“Have you not? I am glad at any rate to hear you deny it. But you will understand what I mean. When a gentleman gets his dismissal from a lady he should accept it,—that is, his dismissal under such circumstances as I have received mine. But I cannot lay down my love in that way; nor, maintaining my love, can I give up the battle. It seems to me that I have a right at any rate to know something of your comings and goings as long as,—unless, Alice, you should take another name than mine.”
“My intention is to keep my own.” This she said in the lowest possible tone,—almost in a whisper,—with her eyes fixed upon the ground.
“And you will not deny me that right?”
“I cannot hinder you. Whatever you may do, I myself have sinned so against you that I can have no right to blame you.”
“There shall be no question between us of injury from one to the other. In any conversation that we may have, or in any correspondence—”
“Oh, Mr Grey, do not ask me to write.”
“Listen to me. Should there be any on either side, there shall be no idea of any wrong done.”
“But I have done you wrong;—great wrong.”
“No, Alice; I will not have it so. When I asked you to accept my hand,—begging the greatest boon which it could ever come to my lot to ask from a fellow-mortal,—I knew well how great was your goodness to me when you told me that it should be mine. Now that you refuse it, I know also that you are good, thinking that in doing so you are acting for my welfare,—thinking more of my welfare than of your own.”
“Oh yes, yes; it is so, Mr Grey; indeed it is so.”
“Believing that, how can I talk of wrong? That you are wrong in your thinking on this subject,—that your mind has become twisted by false impressions,—that I believe. But I cannot therefore love you less,—nor, so believing, can I consider myself to be injured. Nor am I even so little selfish as you are. I think if you were my wife that I could make you happy; but I feel sure that my happiness depends on your being my wife.”
She looked up into his face, but it was still serene in all its manly beauty. Her cousin George, if he were moved to strong feeling, showed it at once in his eyes,—in his mouth, in the whole visage of his countenance. He glared in his anger, and was impassioned in his love. But Mr Grey when speaking of the happiness of his entire life, when confessing that it was now at stake with a decision against him that would be ruinous to it, spoke without a quiver in his voice, and had no more sign of passion in his face than if he were telling his gardener to move a rose tree.
“I hope—and believe that you will find your happiness elsewhere, Mr Grey.”
“Well; we can but differ, Alice. In that we do differ. And now I will say one word to explain why I have come here. If I were to write to you against your will, it would seem that I were persecuting you. I cannot bring myself to do that, even though I had the right. But if I were to let you go from me, taking what you have said to me and doing nothing, it would seem that I had accepted your decision as final. I do not do so. I will not do so. I come simply to tell you that I am still your suitor. If you will let me, I will see you again early in January,—as soon as you have returned to town. You will hardly refuse to see me.”
“No,” she said; “I cannot refuse to see you.”
“Then it shall be so,” he said, “and I will not trouble you with letters, nor will I trouble you longer now with words. Tell your aunt that I have said what I came to say, and that I give her my kindest thanks.” Then he took her hand and pressed it,—not as George Vavasor had pressed it,—and was gone. When Lady Macleod returned, she found that the question of the evening’s tea arrangements had settled itself.
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