which
I cannot even myself understand. I loved him dearly, and we were
engaged to be married."

"You wrote to me, Mary, and told me all that." This he said, striving
to hide the impatience which he felt; but striving in vain.

"I did so, and now I have to tell you that that engagement is at
an end. Circumstances occurred,--a sad loss of income that he had
expected,--which made it imperative on him, and also on me in his
behalf, that we should abandon our hopes. He would have been ruined
by such a marriage,--and it is all over." Then she paused, and he
thought that she had done; but there was more to be said, words
heavier to be borne than any which she had yet uttered. "And I love
him still. I should lie if I said that it was not so. If he were free
to marry me this moment I should go to him." As she said this, there
came a black cloud across his brow; but he stood silent to hear it
all to the last. "My respect and esteem for you are boundless," she
continued,--"but he has my heart. It is only because I know that I
cannot be his wife that I have allowed myself to think whether it is
my duty to become the wife of another man. After what I now say to
you, I do not expect that you will persevere. Should you do so, you
must give me time." Then she paused, as though it were now his turn
to speak; but there was something further that she felt herself
bound to say, and, as he was still silent, she continued. "My
friends,--those whom I most trust in the world, my aunt and Janet
Fenwick, all tell me that it will be best for me to accept your
offer. I have made no promise to either of them. I would tell my
mind to no one till I told it to you. I believe I owe as much to
you,--almost as much as a woman can owe to a man; but still, were my
cousin so placed that he could afford to marry a poor wife, I should
leave you and go to him at once. I have told you everything now; and
if, after this, you can think me worth having, I can only promise
that I will endeavour, at some future time, to do my duty to you as
your wife." Then she had finished, and she stood before him--waiting
her doom.

His brow had become black and still blacker as she continued her
speech. He had kept his eyes upon her without quailing for a moment,
and had hoped for some moment of tenderness, some sparkle of feeling,
at seeing which he might have taken her in his arms and have stopped
the sternness of her speech. But she had been at least as strong as
he was,