"I wish you had not
brought me here. Please get up and let me go. I tell you I am frightened
of you."
He got up and stood a little bit away from me, looking at me in a
shocked bewilderment.
"But you are going to marry me?" he said. "And this is to be our home
together. And you accepted me of your own free will. Do girls in love
behave like this to their lovers?"
"You should not have frightened me," I cried, bursting into tears. "You
should not have brought me here. How can you say I accepted you of my
own free will when it is killing me? You know that I accepted you
because your father holds a disgraceful secret and has frightened the
life out of my grandfather and grandmother. I had to do it for them
because they were old and it would kill them if the disgrace were
published."
It had never entered into my mind that he could be in ignorance of how
his father had constrained us, but now it flashed on my amazed mind
that he had not known at all.
"Good God!" he said. "Good God!" and stood staring at me with a grey
face.
I was frightened then of the mischief I had done, and sorry for him too.
"I thought you knew," I stammered.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE END OF IT
I saw in the momentary pause that his dog came up beside him and licked
his hand and he did not seem to notice her.
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