Page:Confidence (London, Macmillan & Co., 1921).djvu/230

 presently, looking up—"He liked me very much," she remarked.

"All the more shame to him!" cried Bernard.

"What do you mean?" asked the girl, with her beautiful stare.

"If he liked you, why did he give you up?"

"He didn't give me up."

"What do you mean, please?" asked Bernard, staring back at her.

"I sent him away—I refused him," said Angela.

"Yes; but you thought better of it, and your mother had persuaded you that if he should ask you again, you had better accept him. Then it was that he backed out in consequence of what I said to him on his return from England."

She shook her head slowly with a strange smile.

"My poor Bernard, you are talking very wildly. He did ask me again."

"That night?" cried Bernard.

"The night he came back from England—the last time I saw him, until to-day."

"After I had denounced you?" our puzzled hero exclaimed, frowning portentously.

"I am sorry to let you know the small effect of your words!"

Bernard folded his hands together almost devoutly and stood gazing at her with a long, inarticulate murmur of satisfaction.

"Ah! then, I didn't injure you—I didn't deprive you of a chance?"

"Oh, sir, the intention on your part was the same!" Angela exclaimed.

"Then all my uneasiness, all my remorse, were wasted?" he went on.

But she kept the same tone, and its tender archness only gave a greater sweetness to his sense of relief.

"It was a very small penance for you to pay." 222