The clasp with which Mr. Sylvester held her hand in his, tightened for an instant with irrepressible emotion, then slowly unloosed. Drawing back, he surveyed her with eyes that slowly filled with a bitter comprehension of her meaning.
“You are the only man,” continued she, with a glance of humble entreaty, “that has ever stood to me for a moment in the light of a relation. You have been a father to me in days gone by, and to you it therefore seems most natural for me to appeal when a question comes up that either puzzles or distresses me. Mr. Sylvester, you have offered me your love and the refuge of your home; if you say that in your judgment the counsel of all true friends would be for me to accept this love, then my hand is yours and with it my heart; a heart that only hesitates because it would fain be sure it has the smile of heaven upon its every prompting.”
“Paula!”
The voice was so strange she looked up to see if it really was Mr. Sylvester who spoke. He had sunk back into a chair and had covered his face with his hands. With a cry she moved towards him, but he motioned her back.
“Condemned to be my own executioner!” he muttered. “Placed on the rack and bid to turn the wheel that shall wrench my own sinews! My God, ’tis hard!”
She did not hear the words, but she saw the action. Slowly the blood left her cheek, and her hand fell upon her swelling breast with a despairing gesture that would have smitten Miss Belinda to the heart, could she have seen it. “I have asked too much,” she whispered.
With a start Mr. Sylvester rose. “Paula,” said he, in a stern and different tone, “is this fear of which you speak, the offspring of your own instincts, or has it been engendered in your breast by the words of another?”
“My Aunt Belinda is in my confidence, if it is she to whom you allude,” rejoined she, meeting his glance fully and bravely. “But from no lips but yours could any words proceed capable of affecting my estimate of you as the one best qualified to make me happy.”
“Then it is my words alone that have awakened this doubt, this apprehension?”
“I have not spoken of doubt,” said she, but her eyelids fell.