“Oh, Henry! Do I love you?”
“Then save me from this horrible existence. Oh, my love, if you knew what it is to have been a brave man, and to find your courage all oozing away under freezing threats, that you know, by experience, will be followed by some dark, subtle, bloody deed or other. There, they have brought me down to this, that I never go ten steps without looking behind me, and, when I go round a corner, I turn short and run back, and wait at the corner to see if an assassin is following me. I tremble at the wind. I start at my own shadow.”
Grace threw her arms round his neck, and stopped him with tears and kisses.
“Ah, bless you, my love!” he cried, and kissed her fondly. “You pity me—you will save me from this miserable, degrading life?”
“Ah, that I will, if I can, my own.”
“You can.”
“Then tell me how.”
“Be my wife—let us go to the United States together. Dearest, my patents are a great success. We are making our fortune, though we risk our lives. In America I could sell these inventions for a large sum, or work them myself at an enormous profit. Be my wife, and let us fly this hellish place together.”
“And so I would in a moment; but” (with a deep sigh) “papa would never consent to that.”
“Dispense with his consent.”