"Is he in love with you?"
"If you ask me any more such questions, I shall go into my room and lock the door," she declared.
Mildmay took a turn up and down the little apartment. The child was obdurate, yet all the time he seemed to read her soft frightened eyes.
"Virginia," he said suddenly, stopping in front of her, "I have the license in my pocket. Won't you come out with me and be married?"
"No!" she answered, "I will not."
"Think!" he begged her. "It would be so easy. We could walk out of this place together, and in an hour's time you would have some one else to take your little troubles on their shoulders. Don't you think that mine are broad enough, little girt?"
"Please don't!" she begged. "I cannot. I wish you would not ask me."
"I don't know whether it makes any difference," he said, after a moment's hesitation, "but I have plenty of money. In fact I am very rich. If there is any possible way in which money could help your troubles, they would soon be over."
"Oh! I know that you have," she answered. "It is not that."
He looked at her fixedly.