The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900 ... - Gredos

The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900)
serious tone, "What am I to say to her? I would she had not known that I was coming to
you. I must say I have not seen you. Will you think me very wicked if I tell a fib?”
“I think," he returned seriously, "that it is always better to tell the truth."
Rachel reddened and tossed her head.
"You need not be so greatly scandalised — it is not always possible to tell the truth.
Even in the Bible it is made to seem quite right not to tell the truth. Do you remember
the story of Rachel? I have always loved it; but I think that Jacob should not have
consented to marry Leah."
“Even if Leah loved him?" put in Simon in a low voice. The words broke from him
involuntarily, and he had scarcely uttered them ere he blushed again furiously and bit
his lip. Rachel blushed too, she knew not why.
"But what am I to say to Bertha?" she repeated, intending to change the subject, and yet
feeling in some indefinable way, even as she spoke, that she had better have chosen any
other.
Simon uttered a kind of groan.
"Oh, such things should never be spoken of! She should not have known that you were
coming to me. You should — not have told me -"
“Then you would have people pine their lives away
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without knowing the truth!" cried Rachel impetuously. “Such things should never be
spoken of. What folly! Why, how are people ever to find out that they love each other if
they do not speak of it? Can you imagine such a thing, Mr. Fleetwood, as a man being
silent when he is in love?"
“I can imagine it very well," he said quietly.
“You disapprove of my having spoken to Bertha?" she inquired.
"I do not like to hear such things discussed,” he said gravely.
"Believe me, I shall never meddle with your affairs again, Mr. Fleetwood,” she cried,
and turning swiftly she ran away, leaving Simon looking after her. Impelled by some
unaccountable impulse, Rachel turned at the end of a few yards, and looked back and