He refused it utterly.

This girl--this little child--perhaps saw no other termination to their acquaintance than that of marriage, and either this thought had become a brake upon his desire, or he wished, in the honesty of his heart, to treat her well; whatever it was, there was not that in his mind which made him determine to be the one to teach her otherwise.
"Well, now sit down, don't stand about," he said kindly.

"You can't be really as strong as you think yet, and I've got something I want to say to you.

Take this chair, it's about the most comfortable there is here, and I'll get that pillow for your back." His voice was soft--gentle even--in the consideration that he showed.
To himself, he was striving to make amends; to her, he was that tenderness which she knew lay beneath the iron crust of his harder nature.
When she was seated, when he had placed the pillow at her back, he took a well-burnt pipe--the well-burnt pipe that he had smoked before under other circumstances than these--and filled it slowly from a tobacco jar.
Sally watched all his movements patiently, until she could wait for his words no longer.
"What have you to say ?" she asked.
He lit the pipe before replying; drew it till the tobacco glowed like a little smelting furnace in the bowl, and the smoke lifted in blue clouds, then he rammed his finger on to the burning mass with cool intent, as though the fire of it could not pain him.
From that apparently engrossing occupation, he looked up with a sudden jerk of his head.
"You mustn't come here again," he said, without force, without feeling of any sort.
She leant back against the pillow, holding a breath in her throat, and her eyes wandered like a child that is frightened around the room, passing his face and passing it again, yet fearing to rest upon it for any appreciable moment of time.
When she found that he was going to say no more, she asked him why.
Just the one word, breathed rather than spoken, no complaint, no rebellion, the pitiable simplicity of the question that the man puts to his Fate, the woman to her Maker.
"Why ?" He at least was holding himself in harness that she knew nothing of--the curb and snaffle, with the reins held tightly across fingers of iron.
"Why ?" he repeated.

"If you don't know human nature, would it be wise, do you think, for me to spell it out to you ?" She knit her brows, trying to see, trying to think, but finding nothing save the blank and gaping question.