“Very well, sir. Perhaps I didn’t know what I was saying, either, wh—when I agreed to go! I wish—what cannot be!”
“Because I have a loving wife already.”
“Yes, yes! You have!”
They reached the corner of the lane which they had passed half an hour earlier, and she hopped down.
“Izz—please, please forget my momentary levity!” he cried. “It was so ill-considered, so ill-advised!”
“Forget it? Never, never! O, it was no levity to me!”
He felt how richly he deserved the reproach that the wounded cry conveyed, and, in a sorrow that was inexpressible, leapt down and took her hand.
“Well, but, Izz, we’ll part friends, anyhow? You don’t know what I’ve had to bear!”
She was a really generous girl, and allowed no further bitterness to mar their adieux.
“I forgive ’ee, sir!” she said.
“Now, Izz,” he said, while she stood beside him there, forcing himself to the mentor’s part he was far from feeling; “I want you to tell Marian when you see her that she is to be a good woman, and not to give way to folly. Promise that, and tell Retty that there are more worthy men than I in the world, that for my sake she is to act wisely and well—remember the words—wisely and well—for my sake. I send this message to them as a dying man to the dying; for I shall never see them again. And you, Izzy, you have saved me by your honest words about my wife from an