—was to have told me openly that you—liked this young gentleman.'
'But I don't want ever to see him again.'
'Look here, Mary,' he said. But now he had dropped her hand and taken a chair opposite to her. He had begun to find that the task which he had proposed to himself was not so easy even for him. 'Look here, Mary. I take it that you do like this young gentleman. Don't answer me till I have finished what I am going to say. I suppose you do like him,—and if so it would be very wicked in you to marry me.'
'Oh, Mr. Graham———'
'Wait a moment, Mary. But there is nothing wicked in your liking him.' It may be presumed that Mr. Graham would hold such an opinion as this, seeing that he had allowed himself the same latitude of liking. 'It was perhaps only natural that you should learn to do so. You have been taught to regard me rather as a master than as a lover.'
'Oh, Mr. Graham, I'm sure I've loved you. I have indeed. And I will. I won't even think of Al———'
'But I want you to think of him,—that is if he be worth thinking of.'
'He's a very good young man, and always lives with his mother.'
'It shall be my business to find out that. And now Mary, tell me truly. If he be a good young man, and if he loves you well enough to marry you, would you not be happier as his wife than you would as mine?'
There! The question that he wished to ask her had got itself asked at last. But if the asking had been difficult, how much more difficult must have been the answer! He had been thinking over all this for the last fortnight, and had hardly known how to come to a resolution. Now he put the matter before her without a moment's notice and expected an instant decision. 'Speak the truth, Mary;—what you think about it;—without minding what anybody may say of you.' But Mary could not say anything, so she again burst into tears.
'Surely you know the state of your own heart, Mary?'
'I don't know,' she answered.
'My only object is to secure your happiness;—the happiness of both of us, that is.'
'I'll do anything you please,' said Mary.
'Well then, I'll tell you what I think. I fear that a marriage between us would not make either of us contented with our lives. I'm too old and too grave for you.' Yet Mary Snow was not younger than Madeline Staveley. 'You have been told to love me; and you think that you do love me because you wish to do what
