o 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