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it?—of enthusiasm, that I determined to take good and bad together. I wanted to make you commit yourself unmistakably. I should have preferred not to bring you to this place: but that too was necessary. Of course I can't marry you; I can do better. Thank your fate for it. You've thought wonders of me for a month, but your good-humor would n't last. I'm too old and too wise; you're too young and too foolish. It seems to me that I 've been very good to you; I 've entertained you to the top of your bent, and, except perhaps that I'm a little brusque just now, you 've nothing to complain of. I would have let you down more gently if I could have taken another month to it; but circumstances have forced my hand. Abuse me, revile me, if you like. I'll make every allowance!" Pickering listened to all this intently enough to perceive that, as if by some sudden natural cataclysm, the ground had broken away at his feet, and that he must recoil. He turned away in dumb amazement. "I don't know how I seemed to be taking it," he said, "but she seemed really to desire—I don't know why—something in the way of reproach and vituperation. But I could n't, in that way, have uttered a syllable. I was sickened; I wanted to get away into the air,—to shake her off and come to my senses. 'Have you nothing, nothing, nothing to say?' she cried, as