“My forgiveness?”

“Yes, for all that you may have suffered, and for all that may trouble you in the future—­not in the long future, but for the little time you will remember what has taken place here.  Mr. Trelyon, I—­I did not know.  Indeed, it is all a mystery to me now, and a great misery.”  Her lips began to quiver, but she controlled herself.  “And surely it will only be for a short time, if you think of it at all.  You are young—­you have all the world before you.  When you go away among other people, and see all the different things that interest a young man, you will soon forget whatever has happened here.”

“And you say that to me,” he said, “and you said the other night that you loved me!  It is nothing, then, for people who love each other to go away and be consoled, and never see each other again?”

Again the lips quivered:  he had no idea of the terrible effort that was needed to keep this girl calm.  “I did say that,” she said.

“And it was true?” he broke in.

“It was true then—­it is true now:  that is all the misery of it,” she exclaimed, with tears starting to her eyes.

“And you talk of our being separated for ever!” he cried.  “No, not if I can help it.  Mabyn has told me of all your scruples:  they are not worth looking at.  I tell you you are no more bound to that man than Mabyn is, and that isn’t much.  If he is such a mean hound as to insist on your marrying him, then I will appeal to your father and mother, and they must prevent him.  Or I will go to him myself and settle the matter in a shorter way.”

“You cannot now,” she said:  “he has gone away.  And what good would that have done?  I would never marry any man unless I could do so with a clear and happy conscience; and if you—­if you and Mabyn—­see nothing in my treatment of him that is wrong, then that is very strange; but I cannot acquit myself.  No:  I hope no woman will ever treat you as I have treated him.  Look at his position—­an elderly man, with few friends—­he has not all the best of his life before him as you have, or the good spirits of youth; and after he had gone away to Jamaica, taking my promise with him—­Oh, I am ashamed of myself when I think on all that has happened!”

“Then you’ve no right to be,” said he hotly.  “It was the most natural thing in the world—­and he ought to have known it—­that a young girl who has been argued into engaging herself to an old man should consider her being in love with another man as something of rather more importance—­of a good deal more importance, I should say.  And his suffering?  He suffers no more than this lump of rock does.  That is not his way of thinking—­to be bothered about anything.  He may be angry, yes—­and vexed for the moment, as is natural—­but if you think he is going about the world with a load of agony on him, then you’re quite mistaken.  And if he were, what good could you do by making yourself miserable as well?  Wenna, do be reasonable, now.”