If he is such a mean hound as to insist
on your marrying him, then I will appeal to your father and mother,
and they must prevent him. Or I will go to him myself and settle the
matter in a shorter way."
"You cannot now," she said: "he has gone away. And what good would
that have done? I would never marry any man unless I could do so with
a clear and happy conscience; and if you--if you and Mabyn--see
nothing in my treatment of _him_ that is wrong, then that is very
strange; but I cannot acquit myself. No: I hope no woman will ever
treat you as I have treated him. Look at his position--an elderly man,
with few friends--he has not all the best of his life before him as
you have, or the good spirits of youth; and after he had gone away to
Jamaica, taking my promise with him--Oh, I am ashamed of myself when I
think on all that has happened!"
"Then you've no right to be," said he hotly. "It was the most natural
thing in the world--and he ought to have known it--that a young girl
who has been argued into engaging herself to an old man should
consider her being in love with another man as something of rather
more importance--of a good deal more importance, I should say.
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