She came in presently, looking, in her afternoon dress, exquisitely beautiful and graceful. The delicate fairness of her face had flushed slightly as she gave him her hand, but the flush died away as she noticed his gravity.
“I have just come from Belfayre, Ada,” he said, going straight at his hard task, just as he always rode straight at the stiffest timber. “I have something to say to you.”
She took a seat, and motioned him to another, but he stood beside her, with his hand grasping the back of her chair.
“Ada, I have bad news. I am hoping that it will seem as bad to you as it is to me. I will not affect a false modesty. You know, Ada, that I love you, and I have thought sometimes that you might care for me. If I could have done so, I would have asked you to be my wife long ago.”
Her hands lay in her lap. She did not clasp them, but he saw that they trembled.
“But it was impossible. To-day it is more than ever impossible. Last night I heard the full account of our misfortune. We are on the brink of ruin. Indeed, it seems to me that we are already over the brink. We are plunged to the neck in debt, and the men of whom we have borrowed may at any moment come down upon us for their just due. There is only one thing that can save us.”
She raised her head slightly, and looked straight before her. Her face was like a piece of china, her blue eyes dim with pain.
“I know,” she said, almost inaudibly.
“Yes,” he said. “I must do what many a man before me has been compelled to do—I must marry money.”