Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 1.djvu/158

146 Graham; and here it is, if you will be so kind as to take it."

A momentary flush suffused her face—perhaps, a blush of sympathetic shame for such an awkward style of presentation: she gravely examined the volume on both sides; then silently turned over the leaves, knitting her brows the while, in serious cogitation; then closed the book, and, turning from it to me, quietly asked the price of it.—I felt the hot blood rush to my face.

"I'm sorry to offend you Mr. Markham," said she, "but unless I pay for the book, I cannot take it." And she laid it on the table.

"Why cannot you?"

"Because,"—she paused, and looked at the carpet.

"Why cannot you?" I repeated with a degree of irascibility that roused her to lift her eyes, and look me steadily in the face.

"Because, I don't like to put myself under obligations that I can never repay—I am obliged