Part 14 (2/2)
”Yes; I have seen her.”
”Well, it's about her. She and my father live together like man and wife, though they ain't married; and the Vicar must have known that these years, and yet now he makes it an excuse for getting rid of me.”
”I always thought she was a bad woman,” said Mary; ”but you are wrong about my father. He never knew it till now I am certain; and of course, you know, he naturally won't have me go and live in the house with a bad woman.”
”Does he think then, or do you think,” replied George, with virtuous indignation, ”that I would have thought of taking you there? No, I'd sooner have taken you to America!”
”Well, so I believe, George.”
”This won't make any difference in you, Mary? No, I needn't ask it, you wouldn't have come here to meet me to-night if that had been the case.”
”It ought to make a difference, George,” she replied; ”I am afraid I oughtn't to come out here and see you, when my father don't approve of it.”
”But you will come, my little darling, for all that;” he said. ”Not here though--the devil only knows who may be loitering round here. Half a dozen pair of lovers a night perhaps--no, meet me up in the croft of a night. I am often in at Gosford's of an evening, and I can see your window from there, you put a candle in the right-hand corner when you want to see me, and I'll be down in a very few minutes. I shall come every evening and watch.”
”Indeed,” she said, ”I won't do anything of the sort; at least, unless I have something very particular to say. Then, indeed, I might do such a thing. Now I must go home or they will be missing me.”
”Stay a minute, Mary,” said he; ”you just listen to me. They will, some of them, be trying to take my character away. You won't throw me off without hearing my defence, dear Mary, I know you won't. Let me hear what lies they tell of me, and don't you condemn me unheard because I come from a bad house? Tell me that you'll give me a chance of clearing myself with you, my girl, and I'll go home in peace and wait.”
What girl could resist the man she loved so truly, when he pleaded so well? With his arm about her waist, and his handsome face bent over her, lit up with what she took to be love. Not she, at all events. She drew the handsome face down towards her, and as she kissed him fervently, said:
”I will never believe what they say of you, love. I should die if I lost you. I will stay by you through evil report and good report. What is all the world to me without you?”
And she felt what she said, and meant it. What though the words in which she spoke were borrowed from the trashy novels she was always reading--they were true enough for all that. George saw that they were true, and saw also that now was the time to speak about what he had been pondering over all day.
”And suppose, my own love,” he said; ”that your father should stay in his present mind, and not come round?”
”Well!” she said.
”What are we to do?” he asked; ”are we to be always content with meeting here and there, when we dare? Is there nothing further?”
”What do you mean?” she said in a whisper. ”What shall we do?”
”Can't you answer that?” he said softly. ”Try.”
”No, I can't answer. You tell me what.”
”Fly!” he said in her ear. ”Fly, and get married, that's what I mean.”
”Oh! that's what you mean,” she replied. ”Oh, George, I should not have courage for that.”
”I think you will, my darling, when the time comes. Go home and think about it.”
He kissed her once more, and then she ran away homeward through the dark. But she did not run far before she began to walk slower and think.
”Fly with him,” she thought. Run away and get married. What a delightfully wild idea. Not to be entertained for a moment, of course, but still what a pleasant notion. She meant to marry George in the end; why not that way as well as any other? She thought about it again and again, and the idea grew more familiar. At all events, if her father should continue obstinate, here was a way out of the difficulty. He would be angry at first, but when he found he could not help himself he would come round, and then they would all be happy. She would shut her ears to anything they said against George. She could not believe it.
She would not. He should be her husband, come what might. She would dissemble, and keep her father's suspicions quiet. More, she would speak lightly of George, and make them believe she did not care for him. But most of all, she would worm from her father everything she could about him. Her curiosity was aroused, and she fancied, perhaps, George had not told her all the truth. Perhaps he might be entangled with some other woman. She would find it all out if she could.
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