"
"Can I tell him that, when the engagement was made for me by my
father, with my own consent? I should have kept my promise, not
happily, I am afraid, but still contentedly--" she stopped, turned
her face to me, and laid her cheek close against mine--"I should
have kept my engagement, Marian, if another love had not grown up
in my heart, which was not there when I first promised to be Sir
Percival's wife."
"Laura! you will never lower yourself by making a confession to
him?"
"I shall lower myself, indeed, if I gain my release by hiding from
him what he has a right to know."
"He has not the shadow of a right to know it!"
"Wrong, Marian, wrong! I ought to deceive no one--least of all the
man to whom my father gave me, and to whom I gave myself." She put
her lips to mine, and kissed me. "My own love," she said softly,
"you are so much too fond of me, and so much too proud of me, that
you forget, in my case, what you would remember in your own.
Better that Sir Percival should doubt my motives, and misjudge my
conduct if he will, than that I should be first false to him in
thought, and then mean enough to serve my own interests by hiding
the falsehood."
I held her away from me in astonishment.
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