I shall always watch you. I shall always
love you,--always,--always,--always. I always have loved you;--
because you are so good. But it is a different love. And now,
Larry, good-bye." So saying, she raised her face to look into his
eyes. Then he suddenly put his arm round her waist, kissed her
forehead, and left the room without another word.
Mrs. Masters saw him as he went, and must have known from his gait
what was the nature of the answer he had received. But yet she went
quickly upstairs to inquire. The matter was one of too much
consequence for a mere inference. Mary had gone from the
sitting-room, but her stepmother followed her upstairs to her
bed-chamber. "Mamma," she said, "I couldn't do it;--I couldn't do it.
I did try. Pray do not scold me. I did try, but I could not do it"
Then she threw herself into the arms of the unsympathetic woman, who,
however, was now somewhat less unsympathetic than she had hitherto
been.
Mrs. Masters did not understand it at all; but she did perceive
that there was something which she did not understand. What did the
girl mean by saying that she had tried and could not do it? Try to
do it! If she tried why could she not tell the man that she would
have him? There was surely some shamefacedness in this, some
overstrained modesty which she, Mrs. Masters, could not comprehend.
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