“Yes,” she said, gently. “I never guessed it! And now we must part—I must lose my friend! But I am grateful—ah, so grateful. You speak as if I were so far above you! You forget that I also am alone, and lowlier than yourself, for I am a woman, while you are a man, with all the world before you.”
“No,” he said; “all the world lies behind me. Losing you I say good-by to any hope of happiness; good-by to ambition! Percy Levant and the world have done with each other from to-night!”
“Oh, no! no!” she murmured, pleadingly. “You do not know! If I told you that I am not worthy of your love; that I am not only poor and friendless, but”—her face went paler, and her lips quivered—“but nameless! That my life has been wrecked——”
“Wait! wait!” he said, with a strange expression on his face, his voice suddenly hoarse. “Tell me nothing! I know—I know as surely as that these stars are above us, that not an ignoble thought, not one unworthy deed, has ever stained your life. What sorrows have come to you have been undeserved. Nothing could shake my faith in you, my queen, for you are my heart’s queen. Ah, Doris, give yourself to me from to-night! Let me make a fresh life for you; let me teach you to forget the past; let me make the future for you! Say yes, for my sake—or your own! Yes, for your own! See how confident I am that I can make you forget—make you happy! It is my love gives me confidence. I ask for so little—I don’t ask you to love me! I ask you to confide yourself and your future to me. I know that I shall win your love—I am not afraid.” His face lit up as if transfigured by the hope that had sprung up within his breast. “With you by my side I can face the world, and vanquish it! Doris! Doris!”
She put her hand to her eyes, and her lips quivered.
“And you will be content?” she murmured, almost inaudibly. “Content to accept so little for all you offer me—for so much love?”
“Content? Yes!” he responded, fervently, with a world of meaning in his voice. “Yes, I shall be content! I can guess, though you shall tell me nothing now, dearest, that there has been some one else, some other man, who proved unworthy the great treasure of your love, that you have not forgotten him, and the sorrow he caused you! I ask nothing! I am content to wait, and win back your heart for myself, and I shall win it! Now, my queen, give me my sentence,” and he held his hand out to her.
Half-dazed by his passionate pleading, touched by the generosity of his faith and belief in her, thinking of him and not of herself, Doris slowly let her hand fall into his.
He did not take her in his arms, but his hand closed on hers and held it in a close grasp, then, as he pressed his lips to it, he murmured: “My queen! my queen!” with a passionate reverence that would have moved a harder heart than Doris’.
She drew her hand from his clasp gently, and he did not offer to retain it, as if he meant to show her that his promise to be content to wait until he had won her love was something more than an empty phrase.