So he said:
"Let me whisper a little secret in your ear--a secret which I have kept
shut up in my breast all this time. Your rank couldn't ever have been an
enticement. I am son and heir to an English earl!"
The girl stared at him--one, two, three moments, maybe a dozen--then her
lips parted:
"You?" she said, and moved away from him, still gazing at him in a kind
of blank amazement.
"Why--why, certainly I am. Why do you act like this? What have I done
now?"
"What have you done? You have certainly made a most strange statement.
You must see that yourself."
"Well," with a timid little laugh, "it may be a strange enough statement;
but of what consequence is that, if it is true?"
"If it is true. You are already retiring from it."
"Oh, not for a moment! You should not say that. I have not deserved it.
I have spoken the truth; why do you doubt it?"
Her reply was prompt.
"Simply because you didn't speak it earlier!"
"Oh!" It wasn't a groan, exactly, but it was an intelligible enough
expression of the fact that he saw the point and recognized that there
was reason in it.
"You have seemed to conceal nothing from me that I ought to know
concerning yourself, and you were not privileged to keep back such a
thing as this from me a moment after--after--well, after you had
determined to pay your court to me.
Pages:
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255