“Will you take a year to think of me?” said he, rising again to sudden hope.

“No, Larry, no.  I should deceive you were I to say so.  I deceived you before when I put it off for two months.  But you can promise me without deceit.  For my sake, Larry?” And she almost embraced him as she begged for his promise.  “I know you would wish to spare me pain.  Think what will be my sufferings if I hear that you have really gone from Chowton.  You will promise me, Larry?”

“Promise what?”

“That the farm shall not be sold for twelve months”

“Oh yes;—­I’ll promise.  I don’t care for the farm.”

“And stay there if you can.  Don’t leave the place to strangers.  And go about your business,—­and hunt,—­and be a man.  I shall always be thinking of what you do.  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.  How could she have tried to accept a man who was so anxious to marry her, and have failed in the effort?  “Scolding I suppose will be no good now,” she said.

“Oh no!”

“But—.  Well; I suppose we must put up with it.  Everything on earth that a girl could possibly wish for!  He was that in love that it’s my belief he’d have settled it all on you if you’d only asked him.”

“Let it go, mamma.”

“Let it go!  It’s gone I suppose.  Well—­I ain’t going to say any more about it.  But as for not sorrowing, how is a woman not to sorrow when so much has been lost?  It’s your poor father I’m thinking of, Mary.”  This was so much better than she had expected that poor Mary almost felt that her heart was lightened.

CHAPTER VI