“I know I was sudden and frightened her,” he continued; “but if she could—”
“You forget how young she is.”
“No, I don’t. I would not take her from you. We could all go on together.”
“All one family? Oh, you unpractised boy!”
“Have we not done so many winters? But I would wait, I meant to have waited, only I am afraid of dying without being able to provide for her. If she would have me, she would be left better off than my mother, and then it would be all right for you and Armie. What are you smiling at?”
“At your notions of rightness, my dear, kind Duke. I see how you mean it, but it will not do. Even if she had grown to care for you, it would not be right for me to give her to you for years to come.”
“May not I hope till then?”
She could not tell how sorry she should be to see in her little daughter any dawnings of an affection which would be a virtual condemnation to such a life as his mother’s had been.
“You don’t guess how I love her! She has been the bright light of my life ever since the Engelberg,—the one hope I have lived for!”
“My poor Duke!”