The Mettle of the Pasture by James Lane Allen
page 9 of 303 (02%)
page 9 of 303 (02%)
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"Isabel," and then he hesitated.
"Yes," she answered sweetly. She paused likewise, requiring nothing more; it was enough that he should speak her name. He changed his position and sat looking ahead. Presently he began again, choosing his words as a man might search among terrible weapons for the least deadly. "When I wrote and asked you to marry me, I said I should come to-night and receive your answer from your own lips. If your answer had been different, I should never have spoken to you of my past. It would not have been my duty. I should not have had the right. I repeat, Isabel, that until you had confessed your love for me, I should have had no right to speak to you about my past. But now there is something you ought to be told at once." She glanced up quickly with a rebuking smile. How could he wander so far from the happiness of moments too soon to end? What was his past to her? He went on more guardedly. "Ever since I have loved you, I have realized what I should have to tell you if you ever returned my love. Sometimes duty has seemed one thing, sometimes another. This is why I have waited so long--more than two years; the way was not clear. Isabel, it will never be clear. I believe now it is wrong to tell you; I believe It is wrong not to tell you. I have thought and thought--it is wrong either way. But the least wrong to you and to myself--that |
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