It was her mother's
name."
Fanny despised herself for the unreasoning tumult of joy which surged
up within her. He could not possibly marry Andrew Bolton's daughter!
He was watching her closely.
"I thought perhaps, if she consented, I would marry Lydia Orr," he
forced himself to tell her. "I want you to know this from me, now. I
decided that her money and her position would help me.... I admired
her; I even thought at one time I--loved her. I tried to love her....
I am not quite so base as to marry without love.... But she knew. She
tried to save me.... Then her father--that wretched, ruined man came
to me. He told me everything.... Fanny, that girl is a saint!"
His eyes were inscrutable under their somber brows. The girl sitting
stiffly erect, every particle of color drained from her young face,
watched him with something like terror. Why was he telling her
this?--Why? Why?
His next words answered her:
"I can conceive of no worse punishment than having you think ill of
me." ... And after a pause: "I deserve everything you may be telling
yourself."
But coherent thought had become impossible for Fanny.
"Why don't you marry her?" she asked clearly.
"Oh, I asked her. I knew I had been a cad to both of you. I asked her
all right."
Fanny's fingers, locked rigidly in her lap, did not quiver. Her blue
eyes were wide and strange, but she tried to smile.
His voice, harsh and hesitating, went on: "She refused me, of course.
She had known all along what I was.
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