"Godfrey," said the voice of Mary Mathews, "dear Mr. Godfrey, have I
become so indifferent to you, that you will neither look at me nor speak
to me?"
She was the last person in the world who at that moment he wished to
see. The sight of her recalled him to a sense of his degradation, and
all that he had lost by his unhappy connexion with her, and he secretly
wished that she had died instead of her father.
"Mary," he said, coldly, "what do you want with me? The morning is damp
and raw; you had better go home."
"What do I want with you?" reiterated the girl. "And is it come to that?
Can you, who have so often sworn to me that you loved me better than
anything in heaven or on earth, now ask me, in my misery, what I want
with you?"
"Hot-headed rash young men will swear, and foolish girls will believe
them," said Godfrey, putting his arm carelessly round her waist, and
drawing her towards him. "So it has been since the world began, and so
it will be until the end of time."
"Was all you told me, then, false?" said Mary, leaning her head back
upon his shoulder, and fixing her large beautiful tearful eyes upon his
face.
That look of unutterable fondness banished all Godfrey's good
resolutions. He kissed the tears from her eyes, as he replied,
"Not exactly, Mary. But you expect too much."
"I only ask you not to cease to love me--not to leave me, Godfrey, for
another.
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