“Respect,” said Walter, in a low tone. “Reverence.”
The colour dawned in her face, and she timidly and thoughtfully withdrew her hand; still looking at him with unabated earnestness.
“I have not a brother’s right,” said Walter. “I have not a brother’s claim. I left a child. I find a woman.”
The colour overspread her face. She made a gesture as if of entreaty that he would say no more, and her face dropped upon her hands.
They were both silent for a time; she weeping.
“I owe it to a heart so trusting, pure, and good,” said Walter, “even to tear myself from it, though I rend my own. How dare I say it is my sister’s!”
She was weeping still.
“If you had been happy; surrounded as you should be by loving and admiring friends, and by all that makes the station you were born to enviable,” said Walter; “and if you had called me brother, then, in your affectionate remembrance of the past, I could have answered to the name from my distant place, with no inward assurance that I wronged your spotless truth by doing so. But here—and now!”
“Oh thank you, thank you, Walter! Forgive my having wronged you so much. I had no one to advise me. I am quite alone.”
“Florence!” said Walter, passionately. “I am hurried on to say, what I thought, but a few moments ago, nothing could have forced from my lips. If I had been prosperous; if I had any means or hope of being one day able to restore you to a station near your own; I would have told you that there was one name you might bestow upon—me—a right above all others, to protect and cherish you—that I was worthy of in nothing but the love and honour that I bore you, and in my whole heart being yours. I would have told you that it was the only claim that you could give me to defend and guard you, which I dare accept and dare assert; but that if I had that right, I would regard it as a trust so precious and so priceless, that the undivided truth and fervour of my life would poorly acknowledge its worth.”