"I do depend on you most entirely. No human being can depend more thoroughly on another. It is not my fortune that I have come to offer you, or simply my love, but in very truth my soul."
"Mountjoy, that is wicked!"
"Then wicked let it be. It is true. Tretton, by singular circumstances, is all my own, free of debt. At any rate, I and others believe it to be so."
"Tretton being all your own can make no difference."
"I told you that I had not come to offer you my fortune." And he almost scowled at her as he spoke. "You know what my career has hitherto been, though you do not perhaps know what has driven me to it. Shall I go back, and live after the same fashion, and let Tretton go to the dogs? It will be so unless you take me and Tretton into your hands."
"It cannot be."
"Oh, Florence! think of it before you pronounce my doom."
"It cannot be. I love you well as my cousin, and for your sake I love Tretton also. I would suffer much to save you, if any suffering on my part would be of avail. But it cannot be in that fashion." Then he scowled again at her. "Mountjoy, you frighten me by your hard looks;—but though you were to kill me you cannot change me. I am the promised wife of Harry Annesley; and for his honor I must bid you plead this cause no more." Then, just at this moment there was a ring at the bell and a knock at the door, each of them somewhat impetuous, and Florence Mountjoy, jumping up with a start, knew that Harry Annesley was there.