'Excuse me, my dear madam, I completely forgot to offer you a chair. You will have the goodness, my dear madam, to call me, for the future, Bill.' 'I'll do nothing of the kind.' 'You will; you will, my dear madam, for if you don't, instead of telling you about George, I'll tell you about the time I conducted a travelling circus through the Antarctic Ocean.' 'I will not.' 'Well, you must know at that time I was under the impression that a fortune was to be made out of performing sea-lions--' 'Please, please don't tell me about the circus now--' 'Bill.' 'Bill.' 'Thank you, madam. May I kiss your hand as a token of my devotion?' 'Yes, if you like; but tell me about George.' 'Now that, dear madam, I have sworn eternal friendship on that hand, I can no longer call you dear madam. I will call you instead, Mistress Alice--' 'Don't mind about me, but tell me about George.' 'Tell me about George, Bill.' 'Tell me about George--Bill.' 'Yes; it is a little complicated. It is easy to understand, but not easy to work out to a satisfactory result. At the betrothal George made Marie promise most solemnly she would never marry any man who did not belong to the Church of England. After that those doubts I spoke of arose in his mind, and he now owes allegiance to no particular form of belief. When he found himself in this condition he explained matters to Marie. He then thought her promise would bar her marriage with him. She took another view, and said she would marry him still, and that the promise did not apply to him.' 'I think so too.' 'Bill.' 'I think so too, Bill.' 'Thank you, Mistress Alice. I like you better the more I see of you. Well, even now George was not satisfied; for, conscientiously believing the girl to be bound by the letter and not the spirit of her promise, he was loth to do anything which could seem to induce her to break that promise.' 'But George always was over-scrupulous.' 'Yes; and is still. However, on his way down from London to this place he changed his mind. He thought, like a sensible man, that his religious feelings, beliefs, or doubts ought to have nothing to do with his marrying or his subsequent treatment of a wife. He had been greatly troubled, not only by the fear of asking Marie to break her promise, but also by a terror of influencing prejudicially her faith: for, he says, no matter what his present state of belief may be, he would give all he has in the world to be back with the peaceful old times he knew before he left Stratford.' 'I wish he had never left Stratford,' she cried petulantly. 'What, Mistress Alice! Here is ingratitude! Why, only for George's going to London you would never have met _me!_ Mistress Alice, you ought to be burned at the stake with green fagots.' 'I didn't mean that; I was thinking only of George.' 'Bill.' 'I was thinking only of George, Bill.'