Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

150 страница из 895

The farmer was touched. He was more than this—​he was fairly overcome.

He was quite unprepared for this violent demonstration of grief.

“I be sorry I’ve hurt your feelings, Jane, truly sorry,” he murmured.

“Don’t say anything to me. Don’t say kind things. Oh, how truly wretched I am!” interrupted Jane.

“Wretched!” he exclaimed, in a tone of surprise.

“I had never counted on this.”

“And is an honest man’s love a thing to be despised?” he said, with something like indignation in his tone.

“No, my dear master, it’s a thing to be proud of,” returned Jane, throwing her arms round his neck, and embracing him tenderly. “It would and ought to make any girl proud and happy—​any but me.”

“Ah, that’s it—​is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You love another.”

“Now, I’m sure you do not mean what you say. I did love another—​him as is dead and gone these six years ago an’ more.”

“Ah! true. No one else?”

“Certainly not. It seems strange to me that you should ask such a question.”

“Does it?” said the farmer, musingly, gazing, at the same time, abstractedly through the lozenge panes of the lattice window of the apartment. Then, after a pause, he added—