Part 81 (2/2)

'And yet, Mr Owen, you think all sorts of unkind things of me when I am absent. For six years!'

'How can I help it, Gladys? You know that I love you better than my life, and yet you won't care one straw for me.'

'Oh! Mr Owen.'

'I can tell you it is no trifling mark of constancy, for a wandering fellow like me to stick to farming, and doing the dutiful son all these years. I should have been off to sea again long ago but for you, and--'

'And the father and mother, Mr Owen.'

'Well, yes, to a certain extent. But you always answer every question but one like a pure, straightforward young woman, as you are. Why won't you tell me the reason you have for hating me so?'

'I don't hate you, Mr Owen.'

'It must be either love or hate. You don't love me. Do you love any one else?'

'No.'

'Have you a heart to give?'

'Ye--no.'

'Which do you mean?'

'I cannot tell you, indeed I cannot!'

'Oh! Gladys, if you knew the pain! Why will you not make me happy, or at least give me a sensible reason?'

'I--I--promised--oh, Mr Owen.'

'Dear Gladys, what? I will never betray you, and will always be a friend, a brother. Who have you promised? Not to marry, not to love--'

'Your father, Mr Owen. I--I--promised never--to--without his consent.'

Fortunately it was dusk, and the curtain between the double carriage was drawn, and Netta and Minette were, apparently at least, fast asleep, so no one saw Owen jump up from his seat with a kind of bound, seize Gladys' hand, try to look into her face, and finally sit down again, retaining possession of the said hand across the elbow of the carriage.

'Do you mean, Gladys, that you promised never to marry me without my father's consent?'

'Yes.'

'Never to love me without his consent?'

'No.'

'That you don't hate me?'

'No.'

'That if I got his consent you would make me the happiest man in the world?'

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