"She is not strong; she has not been accustomed to endure poverty. Can we not save her from its stings? Is it not a duty?"
"To me, sir, a sacred duty, if I can see a way."
"Let me show you the way," he said eagerly. "Dear Mrs. Grantham, my feelings are unchanged. Even in your maiden days I loved you, but stifled my love and kept it buried in my breast when I saw that another had taken the place it was the wish of my heart to occupy. You gave to another the love for which I yearned, and I looked on and suffered in silence. Is not my devotion worthy of a reward? It is in your power to bestow it; it is in your power to save dear Clair from a life of misery. I renew the offer I made you. Promise to become my wife, and the grievous loss you have sustained need not give you a moment's anxiety."
The artificial modulation of his tones, his elaborate actions, and his evident desire to impress her with a sense of the nobility of his offer, filled her with a kind of loathing for him. It was as though he held out an iron chain, and warned her that if she refused to be bound she was condemning her child to poverty and despair. But agonizing as was this reflection, she could not speak the words he wished to hear; she felt that she _must_ have time to think.
"What you have told me," she said, "is so unexpected, I was so little prepared for it, that it would not be fair to answer you immediately. My mind is confused; pray do not press me; in a little while I shall be calmer, and then----"
"And then," he said, taking up her words and thinking the battle won, "you will see that it is the only road of happiness left open to you, and you will give me a favorable answer. We will tread this road together, and enjoy life's pleasures. Shall we say this evening?" She shook her head. "To-morrow, then?"
"Give me another day," she pleaded.
"Till the day after to-morrow, by all means," he said gayly. "It would be ungallant to refuse. But, dear Mrs. Grantham--may I not rather say dear Lucy?--it must be positively the day after to-morrow. I shall count the minutes. To be long in your society in a state of suspense, or in the knowledge that you refuse to be mine, would be more than I can bear."
She silently construed these words; they conveyed a threat. If in two days she did not give him a favorable answer, she and Clair would have to leave the house at once, and go forth into the world, stripped and beggared.
"And now I will leave you," he said, taking her hand and kissing it. "Do not look at the cloud, dear Lucy--look only at the silver lining."