But I wanted
to know if you thought that a person situated as I was, was justified in
marrying any one ignorant of what might happen, what I do hope and trust
never will."
"But if I don't know what you are alluding to in this mysterious way, you
must see--don't you see, love?--I am in the position of the ignorant man
whom I think you said you could not feel it right to marry. Why don't
you tell me straight out what it is?" He could not help his irritation
betraying itself in his tones and manner of speaking. She bent a little
forward, and looked full into his face, as though to pierce to the very
heart's truth of him. Then she said, as quietly as she had ever spoken
in her life,--"You wish to break off our engagement?"
He reddened and grew indignant in a moment. "What nonsense! Just
because I ask a question and make a remark! I think your illness must
have made you fanciful, Ellinor. Surely nothing I said deserves such an
interpretation. On the contrary, have I not shown the sincerity and
depth of my affection to you by clinging to you through--through
everything?"
He was going to say "through the wearying opposition of my family," but
he stopped short, for he knew that the very fact of his mother's
opposition had only made him the more determined to have his own way in
the first instance; and even now he did not intend to let out, what he
had concealed up to this time, that his friends all regretted his
imprudent engagement.
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