cannot give her love.”
“May she not give it in the future,” he asked, “if the one object of her husband’s life is to deserve it?”
“Never!” she answered. “If you still persist in maintaining our engagement, I may be your true and faithful wife, Sir Percival— your loving wife, if I know my own heart, never!”
She looked so irresistibly beautiful as she said those brave words that no man alive could have steeled his heart against her. I tried hard to feel that Sir Percival was to blame, and to
she said. “What has he done to you?”
“Nothing,” the poor creature answered. “Nothing. I’m only frightened.”
Mrs. Clements turned on me with a fearless indignation, for which I respected her.
“I should be heartily ashamed of myself if I deserved that angry look,” I said. “But I do not deserve it.