Taverner remained silent: her eyes seemed to burn their way into him. She shifted her position from one foot to the other; and went on, in an earnest tone, with a vibration in it from the strength of her emotion: ’I am bound to tell you all. If you are to be my husband, you must know everything. I cannot love you. What love I have that is not taken up by Temperance, and Charity, and Martha, and Willie, and Pattie, and Joe, and Kate, and father, and——’ still looking frankly, earnestly at him, ’yes, and by Charles, I have given elsewhere. I cannot help it. It has been taken from me in a whirlwind of fire, as Elijah was caught up into heaven; it is gone from me; I cannot call it down again. If you insist on knowing to whom I gave it, I will tell you, but not now, not yet—afterwards. To show you, Mr. Langford, how I love my home, I had made up my mind to give him up, to throw away all that beautiful happiness, to forget it as one forgets a dream, because I would not be parted from my dear ones. I was resolved to give him up whom I love for them, and now I am required to give them up for you whom I love not.’ She breathed heavily, her labouring heart beat. She drew the red cloak about her, lest the heaving bosom and bounding heart should be noticed. Langford saw the long drops run down her brow, but there were no tears in her eyes.
’I cannot say; it depends how you treat my dear ones.’
’There is one reason why my consent costs me more when given to you than to another; but I cannot tell you that now. I will tell you later.’
She meant that by marrying him she was widening the breach between the uncle and nephew—that she was marrying the former for the express purpose of depriving the latter of his inheritance. She could not tell Langford this now.
’I will do my duty by you to the best of my lights. But I shall have one duty tying me here, and seven drawing me to the little cottage in the lane, and I feel—I feel that I shall be torn to pieces.’
Taverner Langford stood up and paced the room with his arms folded behind his back. His head was bowed and his cheeks pale. The girl said no more. She again shifted her feet, and rested both hands, under her cloak, on the table. Langford looked round at her; her head was bent, her yellow-brown hair was tied in a knot behind. As her head was stooping, the back of her neck showed above the red cloak. It was as though she bent before the executioner’s axe. He turned away.