"I hope I have not offended you?" he said sadly.
"Oh, no."
"I wish I had not spoken. Pray don't think that I am serving you with
any selfish motive."
"I don't think that, Robert. I never could think it of _you_."
He was not quite satisfied yet. "Even if you were to marry some other
man," he went on earnestly, "it would make no difference in what I am
trying to do for you. No matter what I might suffer, I should still go
on--for your sake."
"Why do you talk so?" she burst out passionately. "No other man has such
a claim as you to my gratitude and regard. How can you let such thoughts
come to you? I have done nothing in secret. I have no friends who are
not known to you. Be satisfied with that, Robert--and let us drop the
subject."
"Never to take it up again?" he asked, with the infatuated pertinacity
of a man clinging to his last hope.
At other times and under other circumstances, Isabel might have answered
him sharply. She spoke with perfect gentleness now.
"Not for the present," she said. "I don't know my own heart. Give me
time."
His gratitude caught at those words, as the drowning man is said to
catch at the proverbial straw. He lifted her hand, and suddenly and
fondly pressed his lips on it. She showed no confusion. Was she sorry
for him, poor wretch!--and was that all?
They walked on, arm-in-arm, in silence.
Crossing the last field, they entered again on the high road leading
to the row of villas in which Miss Pink lived.
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