Page:E Nesbit - Man and Maid (1906).djvu/279



“Don’t—don’t cry, dear one,” he said. “What is it? You’ve only to choose. Everything is for you to decide.”

Still she did not speak.

“Good-bye, then,” he said, and turned. But she caught at him blindly.

“Don’t—don’t go!” she cried. “I didn’t think I cared about you in the summer, but since you went away, oh, you don’t know how I’ve wanted you!”

“Well,” he said, when her tears were dried, “aren’t you going to scold me?”

“Don’t!” said she.

“At least tell me all about my brother—and why he thought you would be so ready to marry him.”

“That? Oh, that was only his conceit. You know I always do talk to people in railway carriages and things. I suppose he thought it was only him I talked to.”

“And the name?”

“I—I thought if I said my name was Susannah he wouldn’t get sentimental.”

“You ‘took a false name to deceive him’?”

“Don’t—oh, don’t!”

“And the tobacco shop?”