“Wrong, Marian, wrong! I ought to deceive no one⁠—least of all the man to whom my father gave me, and to whom I gave myself.” She put her lips to mine, and kissed me. “My own love,” she said softly, “you are so much too fond of me, and so much too proud of me, that you forget, in my case, what you would remember in your own. Better that Sir Percival should doubt my motives, and misjudge my conduct if he will, than that I should be first false to him in thought, and then mean enough to serve my own interests by hiding the falsehood.”

I held her away from me in astonishment. For the first time in our lives we had changed places⁠—the resolution was all on her side, the hesitation all on mine. I looked into the pale, quiet, resigned young face⁠—I saw the pure, innocent heart, in the loving eyes that looked back at me⁠—and the poor worldly cautions and objections that rose to my lips dwindled and died away in their own emptiness. I hung my head in silence. In her place the despicably small pride which makes so many women deceitful would have been my pride, and would have made me deceitful too.