"I ought to give you up, Grizel," he said, with a groan.
"I won't let you," she replied adorably.
"Gemmell has not come near us for a week. I ask him in, but he avoids
the house."
"I don't understand it," Grizel had to admit; "but I think he is fond
of her, I do indeed."
"Even if that were so, I fear she would not accept him. I know Elspeth
so well that I feel I am deceiving you if I say there is any hope."
"Nevertheless you must say it," she answered brightly; "you must say
it and leave me to think it. And I do think it. I believe that
Elspeth, despite her timidity and her dependence on you, is like other
girls at heart, and not more difficult to win.
"And even if it all comes to nothing," she told him, a little faintly,
"I shall not be unhappy. You don't really know me if you think I
should love to be married so--so much as all that."
"It is you, Grizel," he replied, "who don't see that it is myself I am
pitying. It is I who want to be married as much as all that."
Her eyes shone with a soft light, for of course it was what she wanted
him to say. These two seemed to have changed places. That people could
love each other, and there the end, had been his fond philosophy and
her torment.
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