“I will never borrow.”
The old man, weakened by illness and shaken by the break he had just made in an almost life-long reserve, uttered a deep sigh. Clarke, whose thoughts were with Polly as much as they were with his surrendered hopes, re-echoed this sound of despair before saying:
“I have always cherished a certain sort of pride, too. I could not feel free under a burden of debt incurred for something whose value is yet to be tested. I cannot be beholden to any one for a start which is as likely to lead to failure as to success.”
“Not if that person is your promised wife?” burst from trembling and eager lips behind him, and Polly, accompanied by Mrs. Unwin, who had mistaken the ring of the bell for the signal which had been established between herself and Clarke, stepped into the room, and advanced with timid steps but glowing cheeks into the presence of the equally astonished son and father.
“Polly!” sprang involuntarily from the lover’s lips, as he rose and cast a doubtful glance toward his father. But the latter, roused by the fresh young face turned so eagerly toward him, had lost his white look, and was staring forward with surprised but by no means repelling glances.
“What does she say?” he murmured. “This should be Polly Earle, to whom some kindly friend has just left twenty thousand dollars. Does she love you, Clarke, and was the word she just used ‘wife’? I’m getting so dull of hearing with this ceaseless pain, that I do not always understand what is said in my presence.”
Clarke, delighted with the eagerness apparent in his suffering father’s look and manner, took the young girl by the hand and brought her forward. “This is the woman whom I chose for my wife when I thought my prospects warranted me in doing so. But now that I have little else than debts to offer her, I have scruples in accepting her affection, dear as it is and disinterested as she shows herself. I would not seem to take advantage of her youth.”
“But it is I,” she broke in gayly, “who am likely to take advantage of your disappointments! I heard by mistake, I think, something of what your father has had to say to you, and my only feeling, you see, is one of delight that I can do something to show my gratitude for all that you and others have done for me in the years when I was a penniless orphan. Is that a wrong feeling, Mr. Unwin, and will you deny me the privilege of—” She could say no more, but her eyes, her lips, her face were one appeal, and that of the most glowing kind. Clarke’s eyes dropped lest they should betray his feelings too vividly, and Mrs. Unwin, who had thrown her arm around Polly, turned her face toward her husband with such an expression of thankfulness that he did not know which caused him the greater surprise, his wife’s sudden beauty or the frank yet timorous aspect of this hitherto scarcely noted young girl in the presence of the two great masters of the world, Love and Death.
“Come here!” he finally entreated, holding out one shaking hand toward Polly. She tossed her hat aside like a wild creature who recoils from any sort of restraint, and coming up close to the bed, fell on her knees by his side.
“So you love Clarke?” he queried.