"What!" exclaimed Falconer, his face growing darker.
"I intend dropping the earldom," said Stafford.
"But I don't intend you should," retorted Falconer, brutally. "If I consent to my daughter's marrying a pauper—"
"A pauper is one who begs," said poor Stafford, his face white as marble. "I have not yet begged—"
"Stafford!" cried Maude. Then she swung on her father. "Why do you speak to him—to him—like this?—Stafford, you will yield—"
"In everything, in every way, but this," he said, with the same ominous quietude. "If you are content to drop the title, to share the life of a poor and an ordinary working-man—as I hope to be—"
He held out his hand, and she would have taken it, clung to it, but her father strode between them, and with a harsh laugh, exclaimed:
"You fool! Don't you see that he is wanting to get rid of you, that he is only too glad of the excuse? Great God! have you no touch of womanliness in you, no sense of shame—"
She swept him aside with a gesture, and advancing to Stafford, looked straight into his eyes.
"Is—is it true?" she asked hoarsely. "Tell me! Is what he says true? That—that rather than marry me you would go out into the world penniless, to earn your living—you? Answer! Do—do you love me?"