, indeed, Mr. Godfrey, that's not known to me, and I have very good
reasons for thinking different. But if it's true, I don't wish to hear it.«
    »Would you never forgive me, then, Nancy - never think well of me, let what
would happen - would you never think the present made amends for the past? Not
if I turned a good fellow, and gave up everything you didn't like?«
    Godfrey was half conscious that this sudden opportunity of speaking to Nancy
alone had driven him beside himself; but blind feeling had got the mastery of
his tongue. Nancy really felt much agitated by the possibility Godfrey's words
suggested, but this very pressure of emotion that she was in danger of finding
too strong for her roused all her power of self-command.
    »I should be glad to see a good change in anybody, Mr. Godfrey,« she
answered, with the slightest discernible difference of tone, »but it 'ud be
better if no change was wanted.«
    »You're very hard-hearted, Nancy,« said Godfrey, pettishly. »You might
encourage me to be a better fellow. I'm very miserable - but you've no feeling.«
    »I think those have the least feeling that act wrong to begin with,« said
Nancy, sending out a flash in spite of herself. Godfrey was delighted with that
little flash, and would have liked to go on and make her quarrel with him; Nancy
was so exasperatingly quiet and firm. But she was not indifferent to him yet.
    The entrance of Priscilla, bustling forward and saying, »Dear heart alive,
child, let us look at this gown,« cut off Godfrey's hopes of a quarrel.
    »I suppose I must go now,« he said to Priscilla.
    »It's no matter to me whether you go or stay,« said that frank lady,
searching for something in her pocket, with a preoccupied brow.
    »Do you want me to go?« said Godfrey, looking at Nancy, who was now standing
up by Priscilla's order.
    »As you like,« said Nancy, trying to recover all her former coldness, and
looking down carefully at the hem of her gown.
    »Then I like to stay,« said Godfrey, with a reckless determination to get as
much of this joy as he could to-night, and think nothing of the morrow.
 

                                  Chapter XII

While Godfrey Cass was taking draughts of forgetfulness from
