Walter just said, gloomily, “I see objections, for all that; but do as you please.”

Mary’s tender heart and loving nature couldn’t accept an unwilling assent.  She turned her eyes on Walter a little reproachfully.  “That’s the way to make me do what you please.”

“I don’t intend it so,” said Walter.  “When a husband and wife love each other as we do, they must give in to each other.”

“That’s not what we said at the altar.”

“Oh, the marriage service is rather one-sided.  I promised very different things to get you to marry me, and I mean to stand by them.  If you are impatient at all of this secrecy, tell Mr. Hope.”

“I can’t now,” said Mary, a little bitterly.

“Why not, since I consent?”

“An unwilling consent is no consent.”

“Mary, you are too tyrannical.  How can I downright like a thing I don’t like?  I yield my will to yours; there’s a certain satisfaction in that.  I really can say no more.”

“Then say no more,” said Mary, almost severely.

“At all events give me a kiss at parting.”

Mary gave him that directly, but it was not a warm one.

He galloped away upon his errand, and as she paced slowly back toward Mr. Hope’s office she was a good deal put out.  What should she say to Mr. Hope now?  She could not defy Walter’s evident wishes, and make a clean breast of the matter.  Then she asked herself what was Walter’s objection; she couldn’t conceive why he was afraid to trust Mr. Hope.  It was a perfect puzzle to her.

Indeed this was a most unfortunate dialogue between her and Walter, for it set her mind speculating and guessing at Walter’s mind, and thinking all manner of things just at the moment when an enemy, smooth as the old serpent, was watching for an opportunity to make mischief and poison her mind.  Leonard Monckton, who had long been hanging about, waiting to catch her alone, met her returning from Walter Clifford, and took off his hat very respectfully to her, and said: 

“Miss Bartley, I think.”

Mary lifted her eyes, and saw an elderly man with a pale face and dark eyebrows and a cast of countenance quite unlike that of any of her friends.  His face repelled her directly, and she said, very coldly: 

“Yes, sir; but I have not the pleasure of knowing you.”

And she quietly passed on.

Monckton affected not to see that she was declining to communicate with him.  He walked on quietly, and said: 

“And I have not seen you since you were a child, but I had the honor of knowing your mother.”

“You knew my mother, sir?”

“Knew her and respected her.”

“What was she like, sir?”

“She was tall and rather dark, not like you.”

“So I have heard,” said Mary.  “Well, sir,” said she, for his voice was ingratiating, and had modified the effect of his criminal countenance, “as you knew my mother, you are welcome to me.”