You know I love you, Ellen, and you only, and that is
all there is to it, and all that there is of any consequence in the
world to me. The matter stops there; that is all there is for you to
consider. Answer me, Ellen, speak to me. Tell me that you believe me."
He stopped and moved a step toward her, but as he did so, the girl,
still without looking up, drew herself nearer to her father and shrank
more closely into his arms; but the father's face was troubled and
doubtful, and he regarded the younger man with a look of the most
anxious scrutiny. Latimer did not regard this. Their hands were raised
against him as far as he could understand, and he broke forth again
proudly, and with a defiant indignation:
"What right have you to judge me?" he began; "what do you know of what
I have suffered, and endured, and overcome? How can you know what I
have had to give up and put away from me? It's easy enough for you to
draw your skirts around you, but what can a woman bred as you have
been bred know of what I've had to fight against and keep under and
cut away? It was an easy, beautiful idyl to you; your love came to you
only when it should have come, and for a man who was good and worthy,
and distinctly eligible--I don't mean that; forgive me, Ellen, but you
drive me beside myself.
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