'Of course it is he. I think, Johnny, you and I are alike in this, that when we have loved, we cannot bring ourselves to change. You will not change, though it would be so much better you should do so.'
'No; I will never change.'
'Nor can I. When I sleep I dream of him. When I am alone I cannot banish him from my thoughts. I cannot define what it is to love him. Iwant nothing from him--nothing, nothing. But I move about through my little world thinking of him, and I shall do so till the end. I used to feel proud of my love, though it made me so wretched that I thought it would kill me. I am not proud of it any longer. It is a foolish poor-spirited weakness--as though my heart has been only half formed in the ******. Do you be stronger, John. A man should be stronger than a woman.'
'I have none of that sort of strength.'
'Nor have I. What can we do but pity each other, and swear that we will be friends--dear friends. There is the oak-tree and I have got to turn back. We have said everything that we can say--unless you will tell me that you will be my brother.'
'No; I will not tell you that.'
'Good-bye, then, Johnny.'
He paused, holding her by the hand and thinking of another question which he longed to put to her--considering whether he would ask her that question or not. He hardly knew whether he were entitled to ask it;--whether or no the asking of it would be ungenerous. She had said that she would tell him everything--as she had told everything to her mother. 'Of course,' he said, 'I have no right to expect to know anything of your future intentions.'
'You may know them all--as far as I know them myself. I have said that you should read my heart.'
'If this man, whose name I cannot bear to mention, should come again--'
'If he were to come again he would come in vain, John.' She did not say that he had come again. She could tell her own secret, but not that of another person.
'You would not marry him, now that he is free?'
She stood and thought for a while before she answered him. 'No, Ishould not marry him now. I think not.' Then she paused again. 'Nay, Iam sure I would not. After what has passed, I could not trust myself to do it. There is my hand on it. I will not.'
'No, Lily, I do not want that.'
'But I insist. I will not marry Mr Crosbie. But you must not misunderstand me, John. There;--all that is over for me now. All those dreams about love, and marriage, and of a house of my own, and children--and a cross husband, and a wedding-ring growing always tighter as I grow fat and older. I have dreamed of such things as other girls do--more perhaps than other girls, more than I should have done. And now I accept the thing as finished. You wrote something in your book, you dear John--something that could not be made to come true. Dear John, Iwish for your sake it was otherwise. I will go home and I will write in my book, this very day, Lily Dale, Old Maid. If ever I make that false, do you come and ask me for the page.'
'Let it remain there till I am allowed to tear it for you.'
'I will write it, and it shall never be torn out. You I cannot marry.
Him I will not marry. You may believe me, Johnny, when I say there can never be a third.'
'And is that to be the end of it?'
'Yes;--that is to be the end of it. Not the end of our friendship. Old maids have friends.'
'It shall not be the end of it. There shall be no end of it with me.'
'But, John--'
'Do not suppose that I will trouble you again--at any rate not for a while. In five years perhaps--'
'Now, Johnny, you are laughing at me. And of course it is the best way.
If there is not Grace, and she has caught me before I have turned back.
Good-bye, dear John. God bless you. I think you the finest fellow in the world. I do, and do does mamma. Remember always that there is a temple at Allington in which your worship is never forgotten.' Then she pressed his hand and turned away from him to meet Grace Crawley. John did not stop to speak a word to his cousin, but pursued his way alone.
'That cousin of yours,' said Lily, 'is simply the dearest, warmest-hearted, finest creature that ever was seen in the shape of a man.'
'Have you told him that you think him so?' said Grace.
'Indeed, I have,' said Lily.
'But have you told this finest, warmest, dearest creature that he shall be rewarded with the prize he covets?'
'No, Grace. I have told him nothing of the kind. I think he understands it all now. If he does not, it is not for the want of my telling him. I don't suppose any lady was ever more open-spoken to a gentleman that I have been to him.'
'And why have you sent him away disappointed? You know you love him.'
'You see, my dear,' said Lily, 'you allow yourself, for the sake of your argument, to use a word in a double sense, and you attempt to confound me by doing so. But I am a great deal too clever for you, and have thought too much about it, to be taken in in that way. I certainly love your cousin John; and so do I love Mr Boyce, the vicar.'
'You love Johnny much better than you do Mr Boyce.'
'True; very much better; but it is of the same sort of love. However, it is a great deal too deep for you to understand. You're too young, and Ishan't try to explain it. But the long and the short of it is--I am not going to marry your cousin.'
'I wish you were,' said Grace, 'with all my heart.'