"Oh! I wish I had not come. But I wanted to grow accustomed so that I
could wear them before others. I believe I could bear it more easily
with any one else. I did not think of it in that way," and she
snatched her cloak from where it had fallen on the floor and threw it
around her.
"What way, Mary?" asked Brandon gently, and receiving no answer. "But
you will have to bear my looking at you all the time if you go with
me."
"I don't believe I can do it."
"No, no," answered he, bravely attempting cheerfulness; "we may as
well give it up. I have had no hope from the first. I knew it could
not be done, and it should not. I was both insane and criminal to
think of permitting you to try it."
Brandon's forced cheerfulness died out with his words, and he sank
into a chair with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands.
Mary ran to him at once. There had been a little moment of faltering,
but there was no real surrender in her.
Dropping on her knee beside him, she said coaxingly: "Don't give up;
you are a man; you must not surrender, and let me, a girl, prove the
stronger.
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