"Oh! Stead, Stead," she cried, bursting into tears. "I thought you had forgiven me."
"Forgiven you! Yea, truly, poor child, but—"
"But only when you were sick! You cast me off now you are whole."
"I shall never be whole again, Emlyn."
"I don't believe Master Willis. He is nought but a barber," she exclaimed passionately. "I know there are physicians at the Bath who would cure you; or there's the little Jew by the wharf; or the wise man on Durdham Down. But you always are so headstrong; when you have made up your mind no one can move you, and you don't care whose heart you break," she sobbed.
"Hearken, little sweet," said Stead. "'Tis nought but that I wot that it would be ill for you to be bound to a poor frail man that will never be able to keep you as you should be kept. All I had put by is well nigh gone, and I'm not like to make it up again for many a year, even if I were as strong as ever."
"And you won't go to the Jew, or the wise man, or the Bath?"
"I have not the money."
"But I will—I will save it for you!" cried Emlyn, who never had saved in her life. "Or look here. Master Henshaw might give you a place in his office, and then there would be no need to dwell in that nasty, damp gulley, but we could be in the town. I'll ask my mistress to crave it from him."
Stead could not but smile at her eagerness, but he shook his head.