"Oh, dear, no! No place to which you would be confined at all. If I may remain as I am, knowing that you intend to marry no one else, feeling confident that there is a bond binding us together even though we should never become man and wife, I should be, if not happy, at least contented."
"That is a cold prospect."
"Cold;—but not ice-cold, as would have been the other. Cold, but not wretchedly cold, as would be the idea always present to me that I had reduced you to poverty. Frank, I am so far selfish that I cannot bear to abandon the idea of your love. But I am not so far selfish as to wish to possess it at the expense of your comfort. Shall it be so?"
"Be how?" said he, speaking almost in anger.
"Let us remain just as we are. Only you will promise me, that as I cannot be your wife there shall be no other. I need hardly promise you that there will be no other husband." Now he sat frowning at her, while she, still pressing back her hair with her hands, looked eagerly into his face. "If this will be enough for you," she said, "it shall be enough for me."
"No, by G——d!"
"Frank!"
"It will certainly not be enough for me. I will have nothing to do with so damnable a compact."
"Damnable!"
"Yes; that is what I call it. That is what any man would call it,—and any woman, too, who would speak her mind."