he had blushed black. "Mary," he continued after a pause,
"can you endure the thought of becoming my wife?" Now she drew her
arm away, and turned her face, and compressed her lips, and sat
without uttering a word. "Of course I am an old man."

"It is not that," she muttered.

"But I think that I can love you as honestly and as firmly as a
younger one. I think that if you could bring yourself to be my wife,
you would find that you would not be treated badly."

"Oh, no, no, no!" she exclaimed.

"Nothing, at any rate, would be kept from you. When I have a thought
or a feeling, a hope or a fear, you shall share it. As to money--"

"Don't do that. There should be no talk of money from you to me."

"Perhaps not. It would be best that I should be left to do as I may
think most fitting for you. I have one incident in my life which I
would wish to tell you. I loved a girl,--many years since,--and she
ill-used me. I continued to love her long, but that image has passed
from my mind." He was thinking, as he said this, of Mrs Compas and
her large family. "It will not be necessary that I should refer to
this again, because the subject is very painful; but it was essential
that I should tell you. And now, Mary, how shall it be?" he added,
after a pause.

She sat listening to all that he had to say to her, but without
speaking a word. He, too, had had his "John Gordon;" but in his case
the girl he had loved had treated him badly. She, Mary, had received
no bad treatment. There had been love between them, ample love, love
enough to break their hearts. At least she had found it so. But there
had been no outspoken speech of love. Because of that, the wound
made, now that it had been in some sort healed, had not with her been
so cruel as with Mr Whittlestaff. John Gordon had come to her on
the eve of his going, and had told her that he was about to start
for some distant land. There had been loud words between him and
her step-mother, and Mrs Lawrie had told him that he was a pauper,
and was doing no good about the house; and Mary had heard the words
spoken. She asked him whither he was going, but he did not reply.
"Your mother is right. I am at any rate doing no good here," he had
said, but had not answered her question further. Then Mary had given
him her hand, and had whispered, "Good-bye." "If I return," he added,
"the first place I will come to shall be Norwich." Then without
further farewell ceremony he had gone. From that d