"Then, sir, if such be the case, I think you may cease to scold me with such violence." "I have long felt that I ought to give you this release; for I have known that you have not thoroughly loved me." Miss Waddington was too proud, too conscious of the necessity to maintain her pride at the present moment to contradict this. But, nevertheless, in her heart she felt that she did love him, that she would fain not give him up, that, in spite of his anger, his bitter railing anger, she would keep him close to her if she only could do so. But now that he spoke of giving her up, she could not speak passionately of her love--she who had never yet shown any passion in her speech to him. "It has grown on me from day to day; and I have been like a child in clinging to a hope when I should have known that there was no hope. I should have known it when you deferred our marriage for three years." "Two years, George." "Had it been two years, we should now have been married. I should have known it when I learned that you and he were in such close intimacy in London. But now--I know it now. Now at least it is all over." "I can only be sorry that you have so long had so much trouble in the matter." "Trouble--trouble! But I will not make a fool of myself. I believe at any rate that you understand me." "Oh! perfectly, Mr. Bertram." But she did not understand him; nor perhaps was it very likely that she should understand him. What he had meant her to understand was this: that in giving her up he was sacrificing only himself, and not her; that he did so in the conviction that she did not care for him; and that he did so on this account, strong as his own love still was, in spite of all her offences. This was what he intended her to understand;--but she did not understand the half of it. "And I may now go?" said she, rising from her chair. The blush of shame was over, and mild as her words sounded, she again looked the Juno. "And I may now go?"