"I tell
you that it is so," she said with energy.
"I am afraid not."
"Go to Madame Goesler, and ask her. Hear what she will say."
"Madame Goesler would laugh at me, no doubt."
"Psha! You do not think so. You know that she would not laugh. And
are you the man to be afraid of a woman's laughter? I think not."
Again he did not answer her at once, and when he did speak the tone
of his voice was altered. "What was it you said of yourself, just
now?"
"What did I say of myself?"
"You regretted that you had consented to marry a man,--whom you did
not love."
"Why should you not love her? And it is so different with a man! A
woman is wretched if she does not love her husband, but I fancy that
a man gets on very well without any such feeling. She cannot domineer
over you. She cannot expect you to pluck yourself out of your own
soil, and begin a new growth altogether in accordance with the laws
of her own. It was that which Mr. Kennedy did."
"I do not for a moment think that she would take me, if I were to
offer myself."
"Try her," said Lady Laura energetically. "Such trials cost you but
little;--we both of us know that!" Still he said nothing of the
letter in his pocket. "It is everything that you should go on now
that you have once begun.
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