Tell me now what has made you run away from me so fast these few days--tell me, you sweet little coquette!" Mary ceased struggling, but turned so as to be almost opposite to him, while she spoke out calmly, and boldly. "Mr Carson! I want to speak to you for once and for all. Since I met you last Monday evening, I have made up my mind to have nothing more to do with you. I know I've been wrong in leading you to think I liked you; but I believe I didn't rightly know my own mind; and I humbly beg your pardon, sir, if I've led you to think too much of me. For an instant he was surprised; the next, vanity came to his aid, and convinced him that she could only be joking. He, young, agreeable, rich, handsome! No! she was only showing a little womanly fondness for coquetting. "You're a darling little rascal to go on in this way! 'Humbly begging my pardon if you've made me think too much of you.' As if you didn't know I think of you from morning to night. But you want to be told it again and again, do you?" "No, indeed, sir, I don't. I would far liefer that you should say you would never think of me again, than that you should speak of me in this way.
For indeed, sir, I never was more in earnest than I am, when I say to-night is the last night I will ever speak to you. "Last night, you sweet little equivocator, but not last day. Ha, Mary, I've caught you, have I?" as she, puzzled by his perseverance in thinking her joking, hesitated in what form she could now put her meaning. "I mean, sir," she said sharply, "that I will never speak to you again, at any time, after to-night." "And what's made this change, Mary?" said he, seriously enough now. "Have I done anything to offend you?" added he, earnestly. "No, sir," she answered gently, but yet firmly. "I cannot tell you exactly why I've changed my mind; but I shall not alter it again; and, as I said before, I beg your pardon if I've done wrong by you. And now, sir, if you please, good night." "But I do not please. You shall not go. What have I done, Mary? Tell me.
