“No, it is not enough. It would be doing
you a great wrong to marry you when I cannot speak,
and I will not do it because I love you too much to
do anything that would harm you. Your world
would think you had done a very foolish thing and it
would be right. I have thought it all over many
times since something Aunt Janet said made me understand,
and I know I am doing right. I am sorry I did
not understand sooner, before you had learned to care
so much.”
“Kilmeny, darling, you have taken a very absurd
fancy into that dear black head of yours. Don’t
you know that you will make me miserably unhappy all
my life if you will not be my wife?”
“No, you think so now; and I know you will feel
very badly for a time. Then you will go away
and after awhile you will forget me; and then you
will see that I was right. I shall be very unhappy,
too, but that is better than spoiling your life.
Do not plead or coax because I shall not change my
mind.”
Eric did plead and coax, however—at first
patiently and smilingly, as one might argue with a
dear foolish child; then with vehement and distracted
earnestness, as he began to realize that Kilmeny meant
what she said. It was all in vain. Kilmeny
grew paler and paler, and her eyes revealed how keenly
she was suffering. She did not even try to argue
with him, but only listened patiently and sadly, and
shook her head. Say what he would, entreat and
implore as he might, he could not move her resolution
a hairs-breadth.
Yet he did not despair; he could not believe that
she would adhere to such a resolution; he felt sure
that her love for him would eventually conquer, and
he went home not unhappily after all. He did
not understand that it was the very intensity of her
love which gave her the strength to resist his pleading,
where a more shallow affection might have yielded.
It held her back unflinchingly from doing him what
she believed to be a wrong.
The next day Eric sought Kilmeny again and renewed
his pleadings, but again in vain. Nothing he
could say, no argument which he could advance, was
of any avail against her sad determination. When
he was finally compelled to realize that her resolution
was not to be shaken, he went in his despair to Janet
Gordon. Janet listened to his story with concern
and disappointment plainly visible on her face.
When he had finished she shook her head.
“I’m sorry, Master. I can’t
tell you how sorry I am. I had hoped for something
very different. Hoped! I have prayed
for it. Thomas and I are getting old and it
has weighed on my mind for years—what was
to become of Kilmeny when we would be gone. Since
you came I had hoped she would have a protector in
you. But if Kilmeny says she will not marry you
I am afraid she’ll stick to it.”
“But she loves me,” cried the young man,
“and if you and her uncle speak to her—urge
her—perhaps you can influence her—”
