Part 92 (2/2)
”I--I _couldn't_ go to The Place,” says t.i.ta. A shudder shakes her frame. ”It was there I first heard---- It was there your mother told me of----”
”I know--I know; and I don't ask you to go there. I think I told you I had bought a new place. Come there with me.”
”Why do you want me to go with you,” asks she, lifting her mournful eyes to his, ”when you know I do not love you?”
”Yes; I know that.” He pauses. ”I ask you for many reasons, and not all selfish ones. I ask you for your own sake more than all. The world is cruel, t.i.ta, to a woman who deliberately lives away from her husband; and, besides----”
”I don't care about the world.”
”We all care about the world sooner or later, and, besides, you who have been accustomed to money all your life cannot find your present income sufficient for you, and Margaret may marry.”
”Oh yes! Yes; I think so.” For the first time she shows some animation. ”I _hope_ so. You saw them talking together to-day?”
”I did.” There is a slight pause, and then: ”You are glad for Margaret. You wish everyone”--reproachfully--”to be happy except me.”
She shakes her head.
”Give me a kind word before I go,” says Rylton earnestly.
”What can I say?”
”Say that you will think of what I have been urging.”
”One _must_ think,” says she, in a rather refractory tone.
”You promise, then?”
”Yes; I shall think.”
”Until to-morrow, then,” says he, holding out his hand.
”To-morrow?”
She looks troubled.
”Yes; to-morrow. Don't forbid me to come to-morrow.”
He presses her hand.
The troubled look still rests upon her face as she turns away from him, having bidden him good-bye. The last memory of her he takes away with him is of a little slender figure standing at the window, with her hands clasped behind her back. She does not look back at him.
”Well?” says Margaret, coming into the room half an hour later.
”Why, what a little snowflake you are! Come up to the fire and warm those white cheeks. Was it Maurice made you look like that? I shall scold him. What did he say to you?”
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