"Now," she said, when she was sufficiently calm, "I am better, and can talk to you."
"What is the meaning of this?" questioned Mr. Hart, in a tone so low that he might have been speaking to himself.
"Dear friend," she said, drawing him to a seat by her side, and holding his hands in hers, "let me have my wilful way; I have a reason for it, a strong reason."
"Yes, yes," he muttered somewhat impatiently, "a woman's reason."
"A woman's reason, if you like," she said, humouring him; at another time she would have fired up, and have given him a Roland for his Oliver. "But apart from that, I love Lucy--and cannot you see that Lucy loves me?"
"I know, I know," he replied; "but I must not lose sight of your welfare. I am poor; I can place you at once in comfort; a plain duty is before me."
"Do you remember how my darling Philip, with his dying breath, asked you to be a father to me? And do you want now to drive me from you?"
"I do remember. I do not want to drive you from me. But our dear Philip, with his dying breath, bade me take you to his father. That was his charge to me, and I shall obey it."
"And you shall obey it--by-and-by; not now; not now!"
"At once--without delay! I paltered with my own happiness by delaying; I will not palter with yours in the same way."