"We should have money enough for that, I suppose."
"I should hope so. But we none of us know anything yet. All your own money—the income, at least, coming from it—is in Sir Henry's hands."
"I will never condescend to ask for that," she said. And then there was a pause in their conversation.
"George," she continued, after a minute or two, "you will not let me fall into his hands?"
He could not help remembering that his own mad anger had already thrown her into the hands which she now dreaded so terribly. Oh, if those two last years might but pass away as a dream, and leave him free to clasp her to his bosom as his own! But the errors of past years will not turn themselves to dreams. There is no more solid stuff in this material world than they are. They never melt away, or vanish into thin air.
"Not if it can be avoided," he replied.
"Ah! but it can be avoided; can it not? Say that you know it can. Do not make me despair. It cannot be that he has a right to imprison me."
"I hardly know what he has a right to do. But he is a stern man, and will not easily be set aside."
"But you will not desert me?"
"No; I will not desert you. But—"