How often had that string
of excellences made her young heart ache in church of late years, and
how strange that he should have cited them now.
"Why didn't you stay and love me when I--was sixteen; living with my
little sisters and brothers, and you danced on the green? O, why
didn't you, why didn't you!" she said, impetuously clasping her
hands.
Angel began to comfort and reassure her, thinking to himself, truly
enough, what a creature of moods she was, and how careful he would
have to be of her when she depended for her happiness entirely on
him.
"Ah--why didn't I stay!" he said. "That is just what I feel. If I
had only known! But you must not be so bitter in your regret--why
should you be?"
With the woman's instinct to hide she diverged hastily--
"I should have had four years more of your heart than I can ever have
now. Then I should not have wasted my time as I have done--I should
have had so much longer happiness!"
It was no mature woman with a long dark vista of intrigue behind her
who was tormented thus, but a girl of simple life, not yet one-and
twenty, who had been caught during her days of immaturity like a bird
in a springe. To calm herself the more completely, she rose from her
little stool and left the room, overturning the stool with her skirts
as she went.
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