"You'll let me speak, won't you? I daresay it's much too soon--I daresay
you can't think of it--yet. But I love you. I love you so dearly! I can't
keep it to myself. I have--ever since I first saw you. You won't be angry
with me for speaking? You won't think I took you by surprise? I don't
want to hurry you--I only want you to know--"
Emotion choked him. Lydia, after a murmur he couldn't catch, hid her face
in her hands.
He waited; and already there crept through him the dull sense of
disaster. The impulse to speak had been irresistible, and now--he wished
he had not spoken.
At last she looked up.
"Oh, you have been so good to me--so sweet to me," and before he knew
what she was doing, she had lifted one of his hands in her two slender
ones and touched it with her lips.
Outraged--enchanted--bewildered--he tried to catch her in his arms. But
she slipped away from him and with her hands behind her, she looked at
him, smiling through tears, her fair hair blown back from her temples,
her delicate face alive with feeling.
"I can't say yes--it wouldn't be honest if I did--it wouldn't be fair
to you. But, oh, dear, I'm so sorry--so dreadfully sorry--if it's my
fault--if I've misled you. I thought I'd tried hard to show what I really
felt--that I wanted to be friends--but not--not this. Dear Lord Tatham, I
do like and admire you so much--but--"
"You don't want to marry me!" he said bitterly, turning away.
She paused a moment.
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