She repeated the word a third time. "Yes." But she again so spoke that none but a lover's ear could have heard it.
"If it be so, nothing but the hand of God shall separate us. You know that they sent for me to come here." She nodded her head. "Do you know why? In order that I might abandon my claim to your hand. I will never give it up. But I made them a promise, and I will keep it. I told them that if you preferred Lord Lovel to me, I would at once make you free of your promise,—that I would offer to you such freedom, if it would be freedom. I do offer it to you;—or rather, Anna, I would have offered it, had you not already answered the question. How can I offer it now?" Then he paused, and stood regarding her with fixed eyes. "But there,—there; take back your word if you will. If you think that it is better to be the wife of a lord, because he is a lord, though you do not love him, than to lie upon the breast of the man you do love,—you are free from me." Now was the moment in which she must obey her mother, and satisfy her friends, and support her rank, and decide that she would be one of the noble ladies of England, if such decision were to be made at all. She looked up into his face, and thought that after all it was handsomer than that of the young Earl. He stood thus with dilated nostrils, and fire in his eyes, and his lips just parted, and his head erect,—a very man. Had she been so minded she would not have dared to take his offer. They surely had not known the man when they allowed him to have this interview. He repeated his words. "You are free if you will say so;—but you must answer me."
"I did answer you, Daniel."
"My noble girl! And now, my heart's only treasure, I may speak out and tell you what I think. It cannot be good that a woman should purchase rank and wealth by giving herself to a man she does not love. It must be bad,—monstrously bad. I never believed it when they told it me of you. And yet when I did not hear of you or see you for months—"
"It was not my fault."
"No, sweetheart;—and I tried to find comfort by so saying to myself. 'If she really loves me, she will be true,' I said. And yet who was I that I should think that you would suffer so much for me? But I will repay you,—if the truth and service of a life may repay such a debt as that. At any rate hear this from me;—I will never doubt again." And as he spoke he was moving towards her, thinking to take her in his arms, when the door was opened and Countess Lovel was within the room. The tailor was the first to speak. "Lady Lovel, I have asked your daughter, and I find that it is her wish to adhere to the engagement which she made with me in Cumberland. I need hardly say that it is my wish also."
"Anna! Is this true?"
"Mamma; mamma! Oh, mamma!"
"If it be so I will never speak word to you more."
"You will; you will! Do not look at me like that. You will speak to me!"