“May I speak to your grandfather—may I tell him what I have told you—may I say, 'It is with Josephine's permission—'”
“I am called Miss Barrington, sir, by all but those of my own family.”
“Forgive me, I entreat you,” said he, with a deep humility in his tone. “I had never so far forgotten myself if calm reason had not deserted me. I will not transgress again.”
“This is the shortest way back to the cottage,” said she, turning into a narrow path in the wood.
“It does not lead to my hope,” said he, despondingly; and no more was uttered between them for some paces.
“Do not walk so very fast, Miss Barrington,” said he, in a tone which trembled slightly. “In the few minutes—the seconds you could accord me—I might build the whole fortune of my life. I have already endangered my hopes by rashness; let me own that it is the fault I have struggled against in vain. This scar”—and he showed the deep mark of a sabre-wound on the temple—“was the price of one of my offendings; but it was light in suffering to what I am now enduring.”
“Can we not talk of what will exact no such sacrifice?” said she, calmly.
“Not now, not now!” said he, with emotion; “if you pass that porch without giving me an answer, life has no longer a tie for me. You know that I ask for no pledge, no promise, merely time,—no more than time,—a few more of those moments of which you now would seem eager to deny me. Linger an instant here, I beseech you, and remember that what to you may be a caprice may to me be a destiny.”
“I will not hear more of this,” said she, half angrily. “If it were not for my own foolish trustfulness, you never would have dared to address such words to one whom you met yesterday for the first time.”
“It is true your generous frankness, the nature they told me you inherited, gives me boldness, but it might teach you to have some pity for a disposition akin to it. One word,—only one word more.”